wax

Etymology 1

table From Middle English wax, from Old English weax, from Proto-Germanic *wahsą, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *woḱ-so-. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Woaks (“wax”), West Frisian waaks (“wax”), Dutch was (“wax”), German Wachs (“wax”), Norwegian voks (“wax”); and with Lithuanian vaškas (“wax”), Proto-Slavic *voskъ (“wax”). , a kind of wax]]

noun

1. Beeswax.
2. Earwax.
   What role does the wax in your earhole fulfill?
3. Any oily, water-resistant, solid or semisolid substance; normally long-chain hydrocarbons, alcohols or esters.
4. Any preparation containing wax, used as a polish.
5. (uncountable, music, informal) The phonograph record format for music.
   What really started the corn sprouting on Broadway was a lugubrious tune by Louisiana's Jimmie Davis called It Makes No Difference Now. In the late '30s Decca's Recording Chief David Kapp heard this Texas hit and got it on wax. 1943, Time
6. (US, dialect) A thick syrup made by boiling down the sap of the sugar maple and then cooling it.
7. (US, slang) A type of drugs with as main ingredients weed oil and butane; hash oil.

adj

1. Made of wax.

Etymology 2

table From Middle English waxen, from the noun (see above).

verb

1. (transitive) To apply wax to (something, such as a shoe, a floor, a car, or an apple), usually to make it shiny.
2. (transitive) To remove hair at the roots from (a part of the body) by coating the skin with a film of wax that is then pulled away sharply.
3. (transitive, informal) To defeat utterly.
4. (transitive, slang) To kill, especially to murder a person.
   "I was reassigned over from the 9th when the battalion CO got waxed on the road leading in." Ben kept his dismay to himself. Here was one more officer in the 90th who'd been on the job only hours or days, replacing commanders killed or wounded.... 2005, David L. Robbins, Liberation Road: A Novel of World War II and the Red Ball Express, page 83
   "You telling me you know who really waxed him and your mom?" "Yeah," she lied. "Just who pulled the trigger or who ordered it to be pulled?" 2009, Dean R. Koontz, Ed Gorman, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: City of Night, page 106
5. (transitive, archaic, usually of a musical or oral performance) To record.

Etymology 3

table From Middle English waxen, from Old English weaxan (“to wax, grow, be fruitful, increase, become powerful, flourish”), from Proto-West Germanic *wahsan, from Proto-Germanic *wahsijaną (“to grow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂weg- (“to grow, increase”). Cognate with Scots wax (“to grow”), West Frisian waakse (“to grow”), Low German wassen, Dutch wassen (“to grow”), German wachsen (“to grow”), Danish and Norwegian vokse (“to grow”), Swedish växa (“to grow”), Icelandic vaxa (“to grow”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌷𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wahsjan, “to grow”); and with Ancient Greek ἀέξειν (aéxein), Latin auxilium. It is in its turn cognate with augeo. See eke.

verb

1. (intransitive, copulative, literary) To increasingly assume the specified characteristic.
   to wax poetic ― to become increasingly verbose
   to wax wode ― to become angry
   to wax eloquent
   You behold, Sir, how he waxeth Wroth at your Abode here. 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume 2, London: Millar, →OCLC, page 289
   The stars grew pale and paler still till at last they vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out against her sickly face. 1885, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 5, in King Solomon's Mines
   In the night, or the gloomy chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death. 1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
2. (intransitive, literary) To grow.
   And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties ; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […]. 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days
3. (intransitive, of the moon) To appear larger each night as a progression from a new moon to a full moon.
4. (intransitive, of the tide) To move from low tide to high tide.

noun

1. (rare) The process of growing.

Etymology 4

Uncertain; probably from phrases like to wax angry, wax wode, and similar (see Etymology 2, above).

noun

1. (dated, colloquial) An outburst of anger, a loss of temper, a fit of rage.
   father Arnall's face looked very black but he was not in a wax: he was laughing. 1914, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter 1
   ‘That's him to a T,’ she would murmur; or, ‘Just wait till he reads this’; or, ‘Ah, won't that put him in a wax!’ 1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 161