wane
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /weɪn/
rhymes: -eɪn
homophone: wain
homophone: Wayne
Forms: form: wanes
form: waning
form: waned
form: waned
Etymology: From Middle English wanen, wanien, from Old English wanian, wonian, from Proto-West Germanic *wanōn, from Proto-Germanic *wanōną.
Senses: examples: text: You saw but sorrow in its waning form.
ref: 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, (please specify the page number):
text: Land and trade ever will wax and wane together.
ref: 1668, Sir Josiah Child, A New Discourse of Trade:
text: I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust.
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 118”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
text: And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane[…]
ref: 1902, John Masefield, The Golden City of St. Mary:
text: And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties ; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […].
ref: 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
text: His popularity, however, has waned, say analysts.
ref: 2022 September 30, Rebecca Ratcliffe, “Anger after Thai court rules 2014 coup leader can carry on as PM”, in The Guardian, Guardian News & Media Limited:
glosses: To progressively lose its splendor, value, ardor, power, intensity etc.; to decline.
examples: text: The skies may hold not the splendour of sundown fast; / It wanes into twilight as dawn dies down into day.
ref: 1894, Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Nympholept:
glosses: For light to dim or diminish in strength.
examples: text: The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing of one moon-spot after another, as the moon wanes.
ref: 1866, Sabine Baring-Gould, “The Man in the Moon”, in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages:
topics: astronomy
natural-sciences
glosses: For the Moon to pass through the phases of its monthly cycle where its surface is less and less visible.
examples: text: Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems//Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams
ref: 1889, Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Swimmer's Dream:
glosses: Said of a time period that comes to an end.
examples: text: The snow which had been for some time waning, had given way entirely under the fresh gale of the preceding night.
ref: 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter XIX, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
text: Denisovans had little genetic diversity, suggesting that their small population waned further as populations of modern humans expanded.
ref: 2012 August 30, Ann Gibbons, “Genome Brings Ancient Girl to Life”, in Science Now, retrieved 04 Sep 2012:
glosses: To decrease physically in size, amount, numbers or surface.
examples: text: In which no lustful finger can profane him,
Nor any earth with black eclipses wane him
ref: 1610, Ben Jonson, The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers:
text: Proud once and princely was the mansion, ere a succession of spendthrifts waned away its splendour.
ref: 1797, Anna Seward, Letter to Mrs Childers of Yorkshire:
glosses: To cause to decrease.
Derived terms: wax and wane