"make waves" meaning in English

See make waves in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-make waves.ogg [Australia] Forms: makes waves [present, singular, third-person], making waves [participle, present], made waves [participle, past], made waves [past]
Etymology: Derived from disruptions caused by waves in water. Head templates: {{en-verb|make<,,made> waves}} make waves (third-person singular simple present makes waves, present participle making waves, simple past and past participle made waves)
  1. (idiomatic) To cause a disturbance. Tags: idiomatic Translations (To cause a disturbance): aiheuttaa kuohuntaa (Finnish), faire des vagues (French)
    Sense id: en-make_waves-en-verb-VNht~v27 Disambiguation of 'To cause a disturbance': 97 3 0
  2. (idiomatic) To upset the status quo. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms (upset the status quo): rock the boat
    Sense id: en-make_waves-en-verb-Shc194of Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 6 84 10 Disambiguation of 'upset the status quo': 3 96 0
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see make, wave. Synonyms: nonconform Related terms: ruffle some feathers
    Sense id: en-make_waves-en-verb-UYP9dG33

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for make waves meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Derived from disruptions caused by waves in water.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "makes waves",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "making waves",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made waves",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made waves",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "make<,,made> waves"
      },
      "expansion": "make waves (third-person singular simple present makes waves, present participle making waves, simple past and past participle made waves)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "To cause a disturbance."
      ],
      "id": "en-make_waves-en-verb-VNht~v27",
      "links": [
        [
          "disturbance",
          "disturbance"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To cause a disturbance."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "97 3 0",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "To cause a disturbance",
          "word": "aiheuttaa kuohuntaa"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "97 3 0",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "To cause a disturbance",
          "word": "faire des vagues"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "6 84 10",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To upset the status quo."
      ],
      "id": "en-make_waves-en-verb-Shc194of",
      "links": [
        [
          "upset",
          "upset"
        ],
        [
          "status quo",
          "status quo"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To upset the status quo."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "3 96 0",
          "sense": "upset the status quo",
          "word": "rock the boat"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see make, wave."
      ],
      "id": "en-make_waves-en-verb-UYP9dG33",
      "links": [
        [
          "make",
          "make#English"
        ],
        [
          "wave",
          "wave#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "31 19 50",
          "word": "ruffle some feathers"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "31 19 49",
          "word": "nonconform"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-make waves.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/90/En-au-make_waves.ogg/En-au-make_waves.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/En-au-make_waves.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "make waves"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Derived from disruptions caused by waves in water.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "makes waves",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "making waves",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made waves",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made waves",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "make<,,made> waves"
      },
      "expansion": "make waves (third-person singular simple present makes waves, present participle making waves, simple past and past participle made waves)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "ruffle some feathers"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cause a disturbance."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "disturbance",
          "disturbance"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To cause a disturbance."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To upset the status quo."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "upset",
          "upset"
        ],
        [
          "status quo",
          "status quo"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To upset the status quo."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see make, wave."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "make",
          "make#English"
        ],
        [
          "wave",
          "wave#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-make waves.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/90/En-au-make_waves.ogg/En-au-make_waves.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/En-au-make_waves.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "upset the status quo",
      "word": "rock the boat"
    },
    {
      "word": "nonconform"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "To cause a disturbance",
      "word": "aiheuttaa kuohuntaa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "To cause a disturbance",
      "word": "faire des vagues"
    }
  ],
  "word": "make waves"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.