wax
part of speech
noun (wax); verb (wax, waxes, waxed, waxing)
meaning for a pupil
1) Wax is a soft material that melts when warm, used to make candles and crayons. tree →
2) Bees make wax for their honeycomb. tree →
3) To wax something is to rub wax on it to make it shiny or smooth, like a car or a floor. tree →
4) Earwax is the soft yellow stuff in your ears. tree →
5) The moon waxes when it looks bigger each night. tree →
6) Wax can also mean to grow gradually stronger or to become more of something, such as angry or furious. tree →
sense in the lessons
In school maths: an amount of material measured to make candles; material per item is a rate; things waxed. In science: wax melts when heated and goes hard when it cools (a reversible change); bees make beeswax; the moon waxes and wanes. In everyday life: candles, crayons, wax seals, waxed jackets. Phrases: «candle wax», «beeswax», «wax and wane».
examples
- Each candle needs 200 grams of wax. tree →
- She has 1 kg of wax. tree →
- How many candles can she make? tree →
- He waxed 4 cars. tree →
- The candle wax melted and dripped onto the table. tree →
- Bees build their honeycomb out of wax. tree →
- The moon is waxing, so it will be full next week. tree →
- We drew with wax crayons and then painted over them. tree →
- Meanwhile, the battle waxed more and more furious. tree →
note
Wax is uncountable: «some wax», «a lump of wax». Melting wax is a reversible change, but burning a candle is not. Maths: material per item is a rate; items made = material ÷ amount per item, and leftover wax is a remainder. Change kilograms to grams first (1 kg is 1000 grams). Safety: hot wax burns.
In the corpora
- In late summer the beekeeper slices the wax caps off heavy frames and spins the honey out in a drum called an extractor.
- Real honey sits in wax cells, and the bees would not hand it over so politely.
- In a lava lamp, wax heated at the bottom expands, becomes less dense and rises, then cools and sinks.
- Burning wax joins its carbon and hydrogen with oxygen and makes carbon dioxide and water vapour.
- Cotton buds push wax deeper and can hurt the eardrum.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «wax» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.