📖 W — The English dictionary · page 3

walkway — Everyday, meaning 1: A walkway is a path or passage for people to walk along, often raised, covered or built between buildings.↗ Example: A covered walkway joins the two school buildings.↗ · We took the moving walkway at the airport.↗ · Keep the walkway clear of bags.↗ · The treetop walkway was high above the forest.↗ · Bikes are not allowed on the walkway.↗ · A wooden walkway crosses the wetland.↗ · Hold the rail on the walkway.↗

wall — Everyday, meaning 1: A wall is one of the sides of a room or building.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A wall is also a fence of stone or brick around a garden, field or town.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A wall can be a thing that stops you, like «a wall of water» or «hit a wall» (to get stuck).↗ Everyday, meaning 4: The wall of a body part is its outer layer, like the stomach wall.↗ Example: The wall is 4 meters long and 3 meters high.↗ · She painted 2 walls.↗ · Each wall has 5 pictures.↗ · A room has 4 walls.↗ · We put our drawings on the classroom wall.↗ · Hadrian's Wall was built by the Romans across northern England.↗ · The cat jumped onto the garden wall.↗ · Kids queued for the climbing wall at the fair.↗ · The monkeys leaped higher up the walls.↗ · Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain; its branches run over the wall.↗ (Torah GEN.49.22, JPS 1917)↗ · All these were fortified cities, with high walls, gates, and bars; beside the unwalled towns a great many.↗ (Torah DEU.3.5, JPS 1917)↗ · And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look; and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house; (Torah LEV.14.39, JPS 1917)↗ · Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.↗ (Writings PSA.122.7, JPS 1917)↗ · And upon every lofty tower, and upon every fortified wall; (Prophets ISA.2.15, JPS 1917)↗ · Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby.↗ (Prophets EZK.12.5, JPS 1917)↗

wallaby — Everyday, meaning 1: A wallaby is an Australian animal like a small kangaroo that hops and carries its baby (a joey) in a pouch.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (Australia, sport) The Wallabies are the national rugby union team of Australia.↗ Example: A wallaby hopped across the dusty track.↗ · A wallaby is smaller than a kangaroo.↗ · The baby wallaby peeped out of the pouch.↗ · Rock wallabies live among cliffs and boulders.↗ · The Wallabies beat the All Blacks on Saturday (Australia, sport).↗ · Wallabies are marsupials.↗

wallah — Everyday, meaning 1: (India, informal) A person who does a particular job or is connected with a particular thing, as in chai-wallah (a tea seller) or rickshaw-wallah.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (old-fashioned UK slang) A person in charge of something, often said jokingly.↗ e.g. "the computer wallah".↗ Example: The chai-wallah poured hot sweet tea at the station.↗ · In Mumbai, dabbawalas deliver thousands of lunchboxes every day.↗ · Ask the computer wallah to fix the printer.↗ · The rickshaw-wallah pedalled us through the busy market.↗ · Grandad called the man who sold ice cream "the ice-cream wallah".↗ · The paper wallah threw the newspaper onto the step.↗

wallet — Everyday, meaning 1: A wallet is a small flat case, usually folded, for keeping money, cards and tickets.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A digital wallet is an app on a phone that holds bank cards to pay with.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A wallet can also be an old word for a bag, often of cloth or leather, that a traveller carries food in.↗ Example: He has 30 dollars in his wallet.↗ · She took 12 dollars out of her wallet.↗ · A wallet costs 15 dollars.↗ · How much is left in his wallet?↗ · Mum keeps her bus pass in her wallet.↗ · Sam found a wallet on the bus and gave it to the driver.↗ · My wallet has a zip for coins.↗ · He paid with the wallet app on his phone.↗ · Here he sat down to rest, and pulling out his wallet prepared to eat his dinner.↗

wallop — Everyday, meaning 1: (informal) To wallop means to hit something or someone very hard.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal) A wallop is a hard hit, or the loud noise of a heavy thing falling.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (informal, sport) To wallop a team means to beat them by a lot.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (UK slang, old) Wallop is also an old jokey word for beer.↗ Example: The ball walloped against the window.↗ · Down came the sack of potatoes with a wallop.↗ · Our team got walloped 7–0.↗ · He gave the stuck door a wallop and it opened.↗ · That chilli sauce packs a real wallop!↗ · In the cartoon, the giant walloped the robot.↗

wallow — Everyday, meaning 1: To roll about in mud or water, as pigs, hippos and buffalo do to cool down.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To let yourself stay sad or upset for a long time and enjoy feeling sorry for yourself.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To enjoy something a lot, like wallowing in a hot bath.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: A muddy place where animals roll about.↗ Example: The pigs wallowed happily in the mud.↗ · Hippos wallow in rivers on hot days.↗ · Stop wallowing and come and play.↗ · She wallowed in a warm bubble bath.↗ · He wallowed in self-pity after losing the match.↗ · The buffalo found a muddy wallow.↗ · The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud for hours.↗ · And Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the midst of the highway.↗ (Prophets 2SA.20.12, JPS 1917)↗ · He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He hath made me to wallow in ashes.↗ (Writings LAM.3.16, JPS 1917)↗ · Make ye him drunken, for he magnified himself against the LORD; and Moab shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be in derision.↗ (Prophets JER.48.26, JPS 1917)↗

wallpaper — Everyday, meaning 1: Wallpaper is paper with patterns or colours that is stuck on walls to decorate a room.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Wallpaper is also the background picture on a computer or phone screen.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To wallpaper is to put wallpaper on walls.↗ Example: We put up new wallpaper in my bedroom.↗ · The wallpaper has stars on it.↗ · My phone wallpaper is my dog.↗ · Dad wallpapered the hall.↗ · The old wallpaper peeled off.↗ · Choose a wallpaper for the computer.↗

wally — Everyday, meaning 1: (UK slang, mild) A silly or foolish person; a mild, often friendly insult.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (Scotland, informal) Made of china or porcelain, as in a "wally dug" (a china dog ornament) or a tiled "wally close" (entrance).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Wally is also a name, as in the books "Where's Wally?"↗ (called "Where's Waldo?" in the USA and Canada).↗ Example: Don't be a wally; put your coat on, it's freezing!↗ · I felt like a right wally when I fell off the stage.↗ · Dad, you wally, you've got your jumper on backwards!↗ · We spent ages trying to find Wally in the busy beach picture.↗ · My cousin called me a wally for losing my shoe.↗ · Nan has a pair of wally dugs on her mantelpiece in Glasgow.↗

walnut — Everyday, meaning 1: A walnut is a nut with a wrinkly brown shell and a wrinkly seed inside that looks a bit like a little brain.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A walnut is the tree that grows these nuts.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Walnut is the hard, dark brown wood of this tree, used to make furniture.↗ Example: I cracked the walnut with a nutcracker.↗ · The inside of a walnut looks like a tiny brain.↗ · Grandad has an old walnut tree in his garden.↗ · Mum put walnuts in the banana bread.↗ · The desk is made of polished walnut.↗ · Some children are allergic to walnuts, so check the label.↗ · A Walnut-tree, which grew by the roadside, bore every year a plentiful crop of nuts.↗

walrus — Everyday, meaning 1: A walrus is a very large sea mammal of the Arctic with long white tusks, whiskers, flippers and a thick layer of fat.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal) A walrus moustache is a big, thick, drooping moustache like the walrus's whiskers.↗ Example: The walrus pulled itself onto the ice with its tusks.↗ · Walruses live in the cold Arctic seas.↗ · A walrus uses its whiskers to find clams on the sea floor.↗ · A thick layer of blubber keeps the walrus warm.↗ · Hundreds of walruses lay together on the beach.↗ · Melting sea ice is making life harder for walruses.↗ · Grandad has a big walrus moustache.↗ · We read «The Walrus and the Carpenter» by Lewis Carroll.↗ · Farther on were the walruses with pig's heads, and teeth a yard long, rolling about like great worms.↗

waltz — Everyday, meaning 1: A smooth ballroom dance for two people who turn round and round together, with three beats in each bar of music.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A piece of music for this dance.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (verb) To dance a waltz.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (informal) To walk somewhere in a confident, casual way, sometimes rudely, as if nothing matters.↗ e.g. "He waltzed in late."↗ Everyday, meaning 5: (informal) To win or do something very easily.↗ e.g. "She waltzed through the test."↗ Example: My grandparents danced a waltz at their wedding anniversary.↗ · The band played a slow waltz.↗ · We counted the waltz: one-two-three, one-two-three.↗ · He waltzed into class ten minutes late without saying sorry.↗ · She waltzed through the maths test in ten minutes.↗ · The cat waltzed off with my sandwich!↗ · We sang "Waltzing Matilda" in our Australia topic.↗ · The prince and Cinderella waltzed around the ballroom.↗ · I am going to teach you to jump and bow, to dance a waltz and a polka, and even to stand on your head.”↗

wampanoag — Everyday, meaning 1: A Native American people of what is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the USA.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Their language, also called Wôpanâak.↗ Example: The Wampanoag lived in New England long before the Pilgrims came.↗ · Tisquantum, also called Squanto, was a Wampanoag man.↗ · The Wampanoag showed the settlers how to grow corn.↗ · Many Wampanoag people still live in Massachusetts.↗ · The Wampanoag language is being taught again.↗ · Massasoit was a leader of the Wampanoag.↗

wampum — Everyday, meaning 1: Small beads made from white and purple shells, strung together or woven into belts by Native American peoples of eastern North America.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Wampum belts were used to record agreements, tell histories and mark important promises between nations.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Later, European settlers also used wampum as a kind of money, so the word sometimes means shell money.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (old slang, US) Money in general — now rare and can sound disrespectful.↗ Example: The museum showed a wampum belt made of purple and white shell beads.↗ · Wampum belts were used to remember a treaty between two nations.↗ · The beads were made from quahog clam shells.↗ · Our teacher said wampum was much more than money.↗ · A speaker held up a string of wampum before giving an important message.↗ · The pattern on the belt showed two paths side by side.↗

wan — Everyday, meaning 1: Wan means pale and looking ill or tired.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A wan smile is a weak, tired or sad smile.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (old, poetic) Wan light is faint and weak.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (Mandarin, pinyin) wǎn can mean evening or late, and wàn means ten thousand; these are not English words.↗ Example: She looked wan after a week with flu.↗ · He gave a wan smile and said he was fine.↗ · The wan winter sun barely warmed the garden.↗ · Your face is so wan — sit down and have some water.↗ · The patient's cheeks were wan and thin.↗ · In Mandarin, "wǎn shàng hǎo" means good evening.↗

wand — Everyday, meaning 1: A wand is a thin stick used by a magician, wizard or fairy to do magic tricks or spells.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A wand is any thin rod or stick-shaped tool, such as a mascara wand or a metal-detector wand.↗ Example: The fairy godmother waved her wand.↗ · The magician tapped the hat with his wand.↗ · I made a wand from a stick and glitter.↗ · Harry Potter's wand had a phoenix feather inside.↗ · Security checked her with a wand at the airport.↗ · There's no magic wand to fix it — we need to work hard.↗ · Wands can't really do magic; magicians use tricks.↗ · “So saying, she touched me with her wand, and I became what you see.↗

wander — Everyday, meaning 1: To walk around slowly without a clear plan or without going anywhere in particular.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To go away from the place where you should be, often without meaning to (Don't wander off).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (of the mind or eyes) To stop paying attention and think or look at other things (My mind wandered in the lesson).↗ Everyday, meaning 4: A wander: a slow, relaxed walk.↗ Example: We wandered around the market looking at the stalls.↗ · Don't wander off at the fair — stay with me.↗ · The little lamb wandered away from the flock.↗ · My mind started to wander during the long film.↗ · If you wander from the path, you might get lost.↗ · Let's go for a wander by the river.↗ · The puppy wandered into the neighbour's garden.↗ · We wandered silently homeward across the mountains.↗ · And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field.↗ (Torah GEN.37.15, JPS 1917)↗ · And the LORD'S anger was kindled against Israel, and He made them wander to and fro in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed.↗ (Torah NUM.32.13, JPS 1917)↗ · And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God: 'A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.↗ (Torah DEU.26.5, JPS 1917)↗ · Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness.↗ (Writings PSA.55.8, JPS 1917)↗ · They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way; they found no city of habitation.↗ (Writings PSA.107.4, JPS 1917)↗ · They wander up and down to devour, and tarry all night if they have not their fill.↗ (Writings PSA.59.16, JPS 1917)↗