different between warn vs wave

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /w??n/
• Rhymes: -??(?)n
• Homophone: worn (in accents with the horse-hoarse merger)

Etymology

From Middle English warnen, warnien (“to warn; admonish”), from Old English warnian (“to take heed; warn”), from Proto-Germanic *warn?n? (“to warn; take heed”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to be aware; give heed”). Cognate with Dutch waarnen (obsolete), German Low German warnen, German warnen, Swedish varna, Icelandic varna.

Verb

warn (third-person singular simple present warns, present participle warning, simple past and past participle warned)

1. (transitive) To make (someone) aware of (something impending); especially:
   1. (transitive) To make (someone) aware of impending danger, evil, etc. [from 11th c.]

      We waved a flag to warn the oncoming traffic about the accident.

      I phoned to warn him of the road closure.

   2. (transitive) To notify or inform (someone, about something). [from at least the 13th c.]

      I warned him he'd be getting a huge box of birthday presents from me.

   3. (transitive) To summon (someone) to or inform of a formal meeting or duty.

      The sheriff warned her to appear in court.

      • 1741–2 March 4, Books of Keelman's Hospital, Newcastle, quoted in Northumberland Words (1894):

        Committee being warned these following were absent or short [...]

      • 1874, Walter Gregor, An Echo of the Olden Time from the North of Scotland, page 142:

        The people had been invited to the funeral, or warnt, by a special messenger a few days before the funeral took place.

      • 1889, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the [State of] Vermont, page 490:

        [...] the plaintiff fraudulently warned the meeting for November 15, giving only five days' notice [...]

   4. (transitive, intransitive, of a clock, possibly obsolete) To make a sound (e.g. clicking or whirring) indicating that it is about to strike or chime (an hour).
      • 1885, Walter Towers, Poems, Songs, and Ballads, page 189:

        Hark! the clock is warning ten;

      • 1885, Emma Marshall, In the East Country with Sir Thomas Browne, page 106:

        No, not a word more, Andrew; the clock has warned for nine, and I am off.

      • 1902, Violet Jacob, The Sheep-Stealers, page 399:

        The clock warned, and the hands pointed to a few minutes before the hour. The preacher looked towards it. "And, as you sit here," he cried," the Old Year is dragging out its last moments and the New Year is coming up —"

      • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:warn.
2. (transitive) To caution or admonish (someone) against unwise or unacceptable behaviour. [from 11th c.]

   He was warned against crossing the railway tracks at night.

   Don't let me catch you running in the corridor again, I warn you.

3. (chiefly with "off", "away", and similar words) To advise or order to go or stay away.

   A sign warns trespassers off/away from the site.

4. (intransitive) To give warning.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, tr. Bible, Galatians II, 9-10:

     then Iames Cephas and Iohn [...] agreed with vs that we shuld preache amonge the Hethen and they amonge the Iewes: warnynge only that we shulde remember the poore.

   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, Penguin 1995, p. 177:

     She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a different name to warn that they might not come true [...].

   • 1988, Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, Picador 2000, p. 496:

     She warned that he was seriously thinking of withdrawing his offer to part the waters, ‘so that all you'll get at the Arabian Sea is a saltwater bath [...]’.

   • 1991, Clive James, ‘Making Programmes the World Wants’, The Dreaming Swimmer, Jonathan Cape 1992:

     Every country has its resident experts who warn that imported television will destroy the national consciousness and replace it with Dallas, The Waltons, Star Trek and Twin Peaks.

Usage notes

• The intransitive sense is considered colloquial by some, and is explicitly proscribed by, for example, the Daily Telegraph style guide (which prefers give warning).

Derived terms

• forewarn
• warner
• warning

Translations

Anagrams

• ANWR

Middle English

Verb

warn

1. Alternative form of weren
2. Alternative form of wernen

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?v, IPA^(key): /we?v/
• Homophone: waive
• Rhymes: -e?v

Etymology 1

From Middle English waven, from Old English wafian (“to wave, fluctuate, waver in mind, wonder”), from Proto-Germanic *wab?n?, *wabjan? (“to wander, sway”), from Proto-Indo-European *web?- (“to move to and from, wander”). Cognate with Middle High German waben (“to wave”), German wabern (“to waft”), Icelandic váfa (“to fluctuate, waver, doubt”). See also waver.

Verb

wave (third-person singular simple present waves, present participle waving, simple past and past participle waved)

1. (intransitive) To move back and forth repeatedly and somewhat loosely.
2. (intransitive) To move one’s hand back and forth (generally above the shoulders) in greeting or departure.
3. (transitive, metonymically) To call attention to, or give a direction or command to, by a waving motion, as of the hand; to signify by waving; to beckon; to signal; to indicate.
   • She spoke, and bowing waved / Dismissal.

4. (intransitive) To have an undulating or wavy form.
5. (transitive) To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form or surface to.
6. (transitive) To produce waves to the hair.

   • There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

7. (intransitive, baseball) To swing and miss at a pitch.

8. (transitive) To cause to move back and forth repeatedly.

9. (transitive, metonymically) To signal (someone or something) with a waving movement.
10. (intransitive, obsolete) To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state.
11. (intransitive, ergative) To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.

Hyponyms

• wave off

Derived terms

• waver

Related terms

• wave the white flag

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English *wave, partially from waven (“to fluctuate, wave”) (see above) and partially from Middle English wawe, waghe (“wave”), from Old English w?g (“a wave, billow, motion, water, flood, sea”), from Proto-Germanic *w?gaz (“motion, storm, wave”), from Proto-Indo-European *we??- (“to drag, carry”). Cognate with North Frisian weage (“wave, flood, sea”), German Woge (“wave”), French vague (“wave”) (from Germanic), Gothic ???????????????? (w?gs, “a wave”). See also waw.

Noun

wave (plural waves)

1. A moving disturbance in the level of a body of liquid; an undulation.
2. (poetic) The ocean.
   • 1895, Fiona Macleod (William Sharp), The Sin-Eater and Other Tales

     […] your father Murtagh Ross, and his lawful childless wife, Dionaid, and his sister Anna—one and all, they lie beneath the green wave or in the brown mould.

3. (physics) A moving disturbance in the energy level of a field.

4. A shape that alternatingly curves in opposite directions.

5. Any of a number of species of moths in the geometrid subfamily Sterrhinae, which have wavy markings on the wings.
6. A loose back-and-forth movement, as of the hands.

   He dismissed her with a wave of the hand.

7. (figuratively) A sudden, but temporary, uptick in something.

   Synonym: rush
8. (video games, by extension) One of the successive swarms of enemies sent to attack the player in certain games.
9. (usually "the wave") A group activity in a crowd imitating a wave going through water, where people in successive parts of the crowd stand and stretch upward, then sit.

Synonyms

• (an undulation): und (obsolete, rare)
• (group activity): Mexican wave (chiefly Commonwealth)

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

• wave at OneLook Dictionary Search
• wave in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Etymology 3

See waive.

Verb

wave (third-person singular simple present waves, present participle waving, simple past and past participle waved)

1. Obsolete spelling of waive

Middle English

Verb

wave

1. Alternative form of waven