wave theory
Americannoun
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Also called undulatory theory. Physics. the theory that light is transmitted as a wave, similar to oscillations in magnetic and electric fields.
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Historical Linguistics. a theory that accounts for shared features among languages or dialects by identifying these features as innovations that spread from their points of origin to the speech of contiguous areas.
noun
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the theory proposed by Huygens that light is transmitted by waves
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any theory that light or other radiation is transmitted as waves See electromagnetic wave
Etymology
Origin of wave theory
First recorded in 1825–35
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.
To better understand how the system behaves, the researcher used linear wave theory to model the interaction among ocean waves, the floating structure, and the gyroscope.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026
The question lingered for two centuries until James Clerk Maxwell’s profound and leucippitous discovery that light favors Huygens’s wave theory.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 27, 2023
Aether: a medium that in the wave theory of light permeates all space and transmits transverse waves.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2018
The events after the Paris attacks suggest the wave theory over the pied piper theory.
From Salon ● Dec. 8, 2015
This was the biggest victory for statistical mechanics and the wave theory of light.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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.
