Wax

Wax, waks, n. the name given to some animal and vegetable substances, and even to one or two mineral bodies (e.g. ozokerite), which more or less resemble beeswax both in their appearance and in their physical properties: the fat-like yellow substance produced by bees, and used by them in making their cells: any substance like it, as that in the ear: the substance used to seal letters: that used by shoemakers to rub their thread: in coal-mining, puddled clay: a thick sugary substance made by boiling down the sap of the sugar-maple, and cooling by exposure to the air: (coll.) a passion.—v.t. to smear or rub with wax.—ns. Wax′-bill, one of various small spermestine seed-eating birds with bills like sealing-wax; Wax′-chand′ler, a maker or dealer in wax candles; Wax′-cloth, cloth covered with a coating of wax, used for table-covers, &c., a popular name for all oil floorcloths; Wax′-doll, a child's doll having the head and bust made of hardened beeswax.—adj. Wax′en, made of wax, like wax, easily effaced.—ns. Wax′-end, better Waxed end, a strong thread having its end stiffened by shoemakers' wax, so as to go easily through the hole made by the awl; Wax′er, one who or that which waxes; Wax′-flow′er, a flower made of wax; Wax′iness, waxy appearance; Wax′ing, a method of putting a finish on dressed leather: the process of stopping out colours in calico-printing; Wax′-in′sect, an insect which secretes wax; Wax′-light, a candle or taper made of wax; Wax′-mod′elling, the process of forming figures in wax; Wax′-moth, a bee-moth; Wax′-myr′tle, the candle-berry tree; Wax′-paint′ing, a kind of painting, the pigments for which are ground with wax and diluted with oil of turpentine; Wax′-palm, either of two South American palms yielding wax; Wax′-pā′per, paper prepared by spreading over its surface a thin coating made of white wax and other materials.—adj. Wax′-red (Shak.), bright-red like sealing-wax.—ns. Wax′tree, a genus of plants of natural order Hypericaceæ, all whose species yield a yellow resinous juice when wounded, forming when dried the so-called American gamboge; Wax′-wing, a genus of small Passerine birds, so named from most of the species having small red horny appendages, resembling red sealing-wax, on their wings; Wax′work, work made of wax, esp. figures or models formed of wax: (pl.) an exhibition of wax figures; Wax′worker.—adj. Wax′y, resembling wax: soft: pallid, pasty: adhesive: (slang) irate, incensed.—Waxy degeneration, a morbid process in which the healthy tissue of various organs is transformed into a peculiar waxy albuminous substance—also amyloid or lardaceous degeneration. [A.S. weax; Ice. vax, Dut. was, Ger. wachs.]