wax1 (waks)

i. [ Goth. wahsjan (pret. wohs, pp. wahsans ) wahsans), grow, increase, wax; = Gr. αυξάνει αὐξάνειν, wax, Skt. ✓vaksh, vaksh, wax, grow; appar. an extension of the root seen in L. augere, increase, AS. eácan, increase: see eke, and augment, auction, etc. Hence ult. wax1, n., waist.] 1. To grow; increase in size; become larger or greater: as, the moon waxes and wanes. So is pryde waxen In religioun and in alle the rew me amonge riche and pore, That preyeres haue no power the pestilence to lette. Piers Plowman (B), x. 75. Sothli the child wax , and was coumfortid, ful of wysdom; and the grace of God was in him. Wyclif , Luke ii. 40. The childe he kepte and nor is shed till it was feire well woxen, and that he myght ride after to court. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), ii. 238. A wexing moon, thot soon would wane. Dryden, Pal. and Arc., iii. 649. Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle. Tennyson, Boadicea. 6853 natural state it is of a dull-yellow color, and smells of honey. Its consistency varies with the temperature; it is ordinarily a pliable solid, readily melted. When purified and bleached, it becomes translucent white, is le tenacious, without taste or smell, and of a specific gravity a little le than that of water. It softens at 80° F., be coming extremely plastic, and retaining any form in which may be molded, like clay or putty, and melts at 158° F. In chemical composition, wax consists of variable propori tions of three substances, called myrocin, cerolein, and cerotic acid. Wax is used for many purposes, both in its natural state and variously prepared. As bleached, and also then variously tinted, it is made into wax candles, which give a peculiarly soft light. In pharmacy it enters into the composition of various plasters, ointments, and cerates, as a vehicle for the active ingredients, and to con upon the preparation a desired consistency. has waxen Waxed end, in shoemaking, a thread the end of which has been stiffened by the use of shoemakers' wax, so as to pa easily through the holes made by the awl; also, a waxed thread terminating in a bristle, for the same purpose. Also reduced to wax -end. - Waxed paper. See paper. II. in trans. To plaster with clay. [Leicestershire coal-field, Eng.] wax3 (waks), n . [Appar. wax2 , v ., taken in sense of 'rub,' hence 'beat, thrash.'] Arage; a pa ion. [Colloq.] She 's in a terrible wax , but she'll be all right by the time he comes back from his holidays. H. Kingsley, Raven shoe, v. anatomical models, artificial flowers and fruits, casts and impre ions of various kinds, etc. This pardoner hadde heer as yelow as wex . Chaucer, Gen. Prol. to C. T., 1. 675. I'll work her as I go; I know she's wax . Beau. and Fl., Coxcomb, ii. 2. The Effigies of his late Majesty King William III. of Glorious Memory is curiously done in Wax to the Life, Richly Drest in Coronation Robes. Quoted in Ashton's Social Life in Reign of Queen Anne, [I. 283. 2. One of various substances and products resembling beeswax in appearance, consistency, plasticity, and the like, or used for like purposes. (a) The substance worked up from the pollen of flowers by the hind legs of bees, and used to feed their larve; bee-bread, formerly supposed to be beeswax. (b) The substance secreted by various coccids or wax-scales, especially such as has commercial value. (See wax - insect, 1.) (c) The product of some other homopterous insects. (See wax-insect, 2.) This is more or le stringy and flocculent, and approaches in character the froth or spume of the spittle-insects, but in some cases is usable like beeswax. (d) The secretion of the sebaceous glands of the outer ear; cerumen; ear-wax. (e) A vegetable product which may be regarded as a concrete fixed oil, the principal varieties being Chinese wax, cow-tree wax, carnauba wax, and Japan wax. It may be obtained from the pollen of many flowers, and it forms a part of the green fecula of many plants, particularly of the cabbage. It appears as a varnish upon the fruit or the upper surface of the leaves of many trees, as the wax-palm and wax-myrtle. Also called vegetable wax. See cut under Myrica. See also wax -tree, and compounds below. (f) A mineral product, one of certain fo il hydrocarbons which occur in small quantities generally in the Carboniferous formation: called more fully mineral wax. The most familiarly known variety is ozocerite. (g) A substance used for sealing. See sealing - wax. Quomodo. He will never trust his land in wax and parchment, as many gentlemen have done before him. Easy. A by-blow for me. Middle ton, Michael mas Term, iv. 1. A letter! hum! a suspicious circumstance, to be sure! What, and the seal a true-lover's knot now, ha? or an heart transfixed with darts; or po ibly the wax bore the industrious impre ion of a thimble. Colman, Jealous Wife, i. nauba wax, a secretion of the young leaves of the car nauba palm, Copernicia cerifera, of Brazil, which is used in making candles is exported in large quantities. And every man that ought hath in his cofre, Lat him appere and were a philosofre. Chaucer, Prol. to Canon's Yeoman's Tale, 1. 284. Now charity is waxen cold, none helpeth the scholar nor yet the poor. Latimer , Sermon of the Plough. First he wox pale, and then wox red. Scott , Thomas the Rhymer, iii. The commander of Fort Casimir, when he found his mar tial spirit waxing too hot within him, would sally forth into the fields and lay about him most lustily with his Irving, Knickerbocker, p. 315. sabre. Waxing kernels, enlarged lymph-nodes sometimes found in the groin in children: so called because supposed to be a ociated with growth.