[? a. ON. veif, something waving or flapping.]

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  † 1.  ? A convolution, coil. Sc. Obs.

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1513.  Douglas, Æneis, VII. vii. 25. The grisly serpent semyt sum tyme to be About hir hals a lynkyt goldin cheynȝe: And sum tyme of hir curche, lap with a waif, Becum the selvage or bordoure of hir quayf.

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  2.  A small flag used as a signal: = WAFF sb. 1 b, WAFT sb. 7. Now Naut.

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1530.  Extracts Aberd. Reg. (1844), I. 446. And the watch that beis in Sanct Nicholace stepill to pyt on the waiffs that he hes, to the part of the toun he seis thame cumand to.

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1850.  Scoresby, Cheever’s Whalem. Adv., xiv. (1858), 213. Two waifs, or flags, were immediately set as a signal of distress.

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1874.  C. M. Scammon, Marine Mammals N. Amer., 25 (Cent.). The officer who first discovers it [a whale] sets a ‘waif’ (a small flag) in his boat, and gives chase.

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