waxen
1 Americanverb
adjective
-
made of, treated with, or covered with wax
-
resembling wax in colour or texture
verb
Etymology
Origin of waxen
before 1000; Middle English; Old English weaxen; see wax 1, -en 2
Vocabulary lists containing waxen
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.
Most significantly, Flanner reported from the trials at Nuremberg, writing that a group of Nazi prisoners “seem already waxen and posthumous, like museum figures of the members of some nefarious long-ago regime which had failed.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 19, 2026
His waxen face was frozen in a perpetual scowl.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 20, 2024
Urs Fischer offers a literally waxen redeployment of antique statuary: a candle in the shape of the Three Graces, the central goddess facing backward, their absent heads turned into burning wicks.
From New York Times • Apr. 20, 2023
Soon after her fourth birthday, in the summer of 1930, a waxen effigy of Princess Elizabeth made its debut at Madame Tussauds, seated on a pony.
From BBC • Feb. 5, 2022
Out of the corners of his eyes Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon the werewolf, the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
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.
