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Etymology
Origin of waxing
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at wax 1, -ing 1
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Vocabulary lists containing waxing
Space Science (Astronomy) - Introductory
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The Moon – Introductory
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The Moon - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Mostly, those are the “momentum” stocks like chip makers that have gyrated with waxing and waning AI optimism.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
The index has seen some wild moves this week -- including Tuesday's 10 percent drop -- amid waxing and waning optimism over the AI boom.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
Known as the Dragon Slayer, he’s often shown meditating, praying, waxing philosophical, and pontificating on nobility, integrity and honor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2026
“Fed leaders would be well served to skip opportunities to share their latest musings. The swivel-chair problem, rhetorically waxing and waning with the latest data release, is common and counterproductive,” Warsh said last April.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 3, 2026
But for the past two weeks, I’ve had a secret joy and a secret dread both rattling inside a me that make waxing floors go even slower and washing underwear a uphill race.
From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
“There is a place in newspaper food sections and food magazines for cheery, revisionist, nostalgic waxings; for songs of dew-kissed baby lettuces; for Proustian glances back,” she writes.
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2022
He arranged for them to get eyebrow waxings and manicures on the day before his Sept.
From Time Magazine Archive
Its waxings and wanings were marked by curious "trepidations" of brightness extremely perplexing to theory.
From A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition by Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
What is the reason for these waxings and wanings?
From Education: How Old The New by James J. Walsh
I might tell of waxings and waning of love between us, but the whole was waning.
From Tono Bungay by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
