a. (and sb.) Also 8 Sc. wavey. [f. WAVE sb. or v. + -Y.] A. adj.
1. Full of waves, abounding in waves, billowy.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T., H 3 b. The waters … putting all theyr wauy shoulders together, bare the whole shole of them [sc. the dead carcases] before them.
1685. Dryden, trans. Lucretius, I. 10. For thee the Ocean smiles, and smooths her wavy breast.
1712. Broome, Iliad, xv. III. 208. They … Travers’d the Mountains, and the Wavy Main.
1816. J. N. Brewer, Beauties Eng. & Wales, X. IV. 28, note. In this fine and bold reach the waters of the Thames are more subject to wavy roughness, than in any other part west of the ancient bridge of London.
1887. Morris, Odyss., XI. 253. Then under the wavy deep he dived adown once more.
b. poet. Pertaining to waves of the sea.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XII. 256. Strain ev’ry nerve, and bid the vessel fly. If from yon justling rocks and wavy war Jove safety grants; he grants it to your care.
2. transf. a. Said of the air, clouds, etc.
c. 1586. C’tess Pembroke, Ps. LXVIII. iv. [The dove] That glides with feathered oare through wavy sky.
1619. Bp. J. Williams, Serm. Apparell (1620), 5. The wavie Curtaines of the Ayre about us.
1794–6. Coleridge, Relig. Musings, 245. Then o’er the wild and wavy chaos rush And tame the outrageous mass.
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, xvii. The fair, wavy cloud that fled in the morning.
b. Path. Wavy breathing, respiration: respiration in which the inspiratory, and sometimes the expiratory, sounds are not continuous but broken into two or more separate parts.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 203. Jerky, interrupted, or wavy breathing.
1913. Dorland, Med. Dict. (ed. 7), s.v. Respiration, Wavy respiration.
3. fig. Fluctuating, wavering, changing.
1795. Coleridge, Friend, I. xvi. (1863), II. 20. When the public feelings are wavy and tumultuous, artful demagogues may create this opinion.
c. 1825. Beddoes, Poems, Sacrif. self-compensated. Weighing well man’s frail and perilous tenure Of all good in the restless wavy world.
4. Moving to and fro or up and down with a sinuous, wave-like motion.
1700. Prior, Carmen Sec., xxvi. Let her glad Vallies smile with wavy Corn.
1708. J. Philips, Cyder, I. 61. Where full-ear’d Sheaves of Rye Grow wavy on the Tilth.
1816. Keats, ‘I stood Tip-toe,’ 73. Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Staying their wavy bodies ’gainst the streams.
1830. Tennyson, Dying Swan, 38. The wavy swell of the soughing reeds.
1884. Manch. Exam., 30 Sept., 5/7. This rolling sea of wavy grass.
b. Of movements: Taking place in undulating curves, sinuous.
1836. Blackw. Mag., XXXIX. 439. [She] spread out her white canvass to the freshening breeze, while winging her wavy way over the blue Atlantic.
1856. Kane, Arctic Expl., I. xxxi. 421. An active wavy movement [of the Aurora], dissipating itself into barely-perceptible cirrhus.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, xii. 201. Representing the serpent’s teeth, or his wavy motion, or his circular figure.
5. Of ground, the surface of the country: Rising and falling gently in a succession of rounded heights and hollows.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., I. 143. The lofty mountains of the other class have a very different aspect. At a distance their tops are seen, in wavy ridges, of the very colour of the clouds.
1789. J. Williams, Min. Kingd., I. 114. A wavy country, which gently swells into broad ridges.
1891. Huxley, in L. Huxley, Life & Lett. (1900), II. 285. A fine wavy chalk down with ‘cwms’ and soft turfy ridges.
6. Forming an undulating line or a series of wave-like curves. Also, having an undulating margin.
a. 1701. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1707), 6. The sides of this Fissure are firm and solid Rock, perpendicular and smooth, only seeming to lie in a wavy form all down, as it were to comply with the motion of the Water.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IV. 202. Such wavy ringlets o’er his shoulders now.
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., I. 47. The Wall … must be … exactly even…, so as not in any part to swell out or sink in, or to be wavy.
1738. Logan, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), I. 339. A straight rod or line, viewed at some little distance through the wavy glass of a window.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, etc. 385. If these [Damascus bars] be drawn in length, the veins will be longitudinal;… if they be made wavy in the two directions, undulated veins will be produced like those in the oriental damascus.
1846. Landor, Imag. Conv., Landor, Engl. Visitor, & Florentine, Wks. I. 340/2. Byron dealt chiefly in felt and furbelow, wavy Damascus daggers, and pocket pistols studded with paste.
1858. G. Macdonald, Phantastes, i. (1878), 10. Her dark hair flowed behind, wavy but uncurled.
1882. Caulfeild & Saward, Dict. Needlework, 195. Wavy Stitch, a raised Couching.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., Wavy rule, brass rule made with an undulating face thus 〜〜〜.
b. Bot. and Zool. Of marks, margins, etc.: Undulate, sinuate; having undulate or sinuate markings.
1832. J. Rennie, Consp. Butterfl. & Moths, 147. Between these streaks and the hinder margin a third streak wavy, brown, terminated by a paler colour.
1857. A. Gray, 1st Less. Bot. (1866), 62. Leaves are said to be … Repand, undulate, or wavy, when the margin of the leaf forms a wavy line, bending slightly inwards and outwards in succession.
1859. Anne Pratt, Brit. Grasses, 74. Aira flexuosa (Wavy Hair-grass). Ibid., 92. Poa laxa (Wavy Meadow-grass).
1866. Treas. Bot.
c. Her. = UNDEE. Barry wavy, of the field: Divided into waving bands of generally horizontal direction.
1562. Legh, Armory, 134 b. He beareth party per crosse wauey Sable, and Argent.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, II. v. (1632), 69. He beareth, Argent, a Bend, Wauey, Sable…. This is termed wauey, or waued, in respect it beareth a Representation of the Swelling Waue or Billowe of the Sea.
1722. A. Nisbet, Syst. Her., I. vi. 22. Wavey or Waved, is said of a Line or Lines that are formed after the Waves of the Sea, as parted per Fess Wavey in the Arms of Drummond of Concraig, and the Lines which form the Barrs waved in the Arms of the Earl of Perth, which signifies, that the Bearer got his Arms for Services done at Sea.
1864. Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., xxi. (ed. 3), 266. Per fesse arg. and barry wavy az.
1890. Conan Doyle, White Company, xviii. ‘How read you this…?’ ‘Argent and azure, a barry wavy of six.’
d. Of a dog (short for wavy-coated): Having the coat in waves, not curly.
1884. Live Stock Jrnl., 28 Nov., 512/2. The Retrievers were good,… the curly Doctor having to give place to the wavy Harvester in Dogs.
1887. Field, 1 Oct. Advt. p. xvi/2. Champion Zelstone (Wavy Retriever).
7. Comb., as wavy-coated, -edged, -haired, -leaved; † wavy-ways adv., after the manner of waves.
1867. ‘Stonehenge,’ Dogs Brit. Isl., 43. Windham … is a good example of the *wavy-coated dog.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. ii. Veneering; forty, *wavy-haired, dark.
1816–20. T. Green, Univ. Herbal, II. 828. Xyris Flexifolia; *Wavy-leaved Xyris.
1855. Anne Pratt, Flower. Pl., V. 78. Salix undulata … is … sometimes called the Wavy-leaved Willow.
1671. Phil. Trans., VI. 2103. When the Load dips almost perpendicularly for many fathoms together, and may rise again in the next Hill (*wavie-ways).
Hence Wavily adv., Waviness.
1790. J. Wedgwood (title), An attempt to discover the causes of cords and waviness in Flint Glass and the most probable means of removing them.
1816. Keats, Epist. Bro. George, 59. The coy moon, when in the waviness Of whitest clouds she does her beauty dress.
1860. Geo. Eliot, Mill on Fl., I. ix. Mr. Rappit, the hair-dresser, with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward.
1877. Waterhouse, in Abney’s Photogr. (1881), 190. A fine, even, glossy surface, perfectly free from the streaks and waviness so common when working with thick films.
1886. J. J. Quelch, Coral-Reefs, in Challenger Rep., XVI. III. 136. The waviness and plications of the margins of the septa.
B. sb. A wavy-coated retriever.
1884. Live Stock Jrnl., 5 Sept., 227/3. Retrievers: first and second both wavys. Ibid. (1884), 24 Dec., 612/2. Such a Kennel of wavies as is not equalled in any part of the world.
