waver

Meanings

1. To swing or wave, especially in the air, wind, etc.; to flutter.
2. To move without purpose or a specified destination; to roam, to wander.
3. To sway back and forth, as if about to fall; to reel, to stagger, to totter.
4. To begin to weaken or show signs of weakening in resolve; to falter, to flinch, to give way.
5. To feel or show doubt or indecision; to be indecisive between choices; to vacillate.
6. Of a body part such as an eye or hand, or the voice: to become unsteady; to shake, to tremble.
7. Of light, shadow, or a partly obscured thing: to flicker, to glimmer, to quiver.
8. Chiefly of a quality or thing: to change, to fluctuate, to vary.
9. Followed by from: to deviate from a course; to stray, to wander.
10. Of the wits: to become confused or unsteady; to reel.
11. To cause (someone or something) to move back and forth.
12. To cause (someone) to begin to or show signs of weakening in resolve; also (rare), to weaken in resolve due to (something).

1. An act of moving back and forth, swinging, or waving; a flutter, a tremble.
2. A state of beginning to weaken or showing signs of weakening in resolve; a falter.
3. A state of feeling or showing doubt or indecision; a vacillation.

1. One who waves their arms, or causes something to swing or wave.
2. A person who specializes in treating hair to make it wavy.
3. A tool used to make hair wavy.
4. In full waver roller: a roller which places ink on the inking table of a printing press with a back and forth, waving motion.
5. Synonym of waverer (“one who feels or shows doubt or indecision; a vacillator”).

1. A sapling or other young tree left standing when other trees around it have been felled.

1. A river in northern Cumbria, England, which flows into the Solway Firth.

Etymology

The verb is derived from Middle English waveren (“to move back and forth, swing; to move unsteadily, totter; to shake, tremble; to wander; (figurative) to be changeable or unstable; to deviate”), and then possibly: * from Old English (compare Old English wǣfre (“flickering, quivering, wavering; active, nimble (?)”)), related to Old English wafian (“to wave”) from Proto-West Germanic *wabbjan (“to cause to weave; to entangle; to wrap”), from Proto-Germanic *wabjaną (“to cause to weave; to entangle; to wrap”); and/or * from Old Norse vafra (“to move unsteadily, flicker”), probably related to vefa (“to weave”); both from Proto-Germanic *webaną (“to weave”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”). Doublet of wave. The noun is derived from the verb.