"wave of the hand" meaning in English

See wave of the hand in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /weɪv ʌv ðə hænd/ Audio: En-au-wave of the hand.ogg [Australia] Forms: waves of the hand [plural]
Etymology: wave + of + the + hand Etymology templates: {{m|en|wave}} wave, {{m|en|of}} of, {{m|en|the}} the, {{m|en|hand}} hand Head templates: {{en-noun|waves of the hand}} wave of the hand (plural waves of the hand)
  1. (idiomatic) A simple gesture, as used for command, dismissal, or summoning something as if by magic. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: handwave, handwaving, hand waving, handwavium, handwavy
    Sense id: en-wave_of_the_hand-en-noun-DY4l~cpI Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for wave of the hand meaning in English (1.7kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "wave"
      },
      "expansion": "wave",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "of"
      },
      "expansion": "of",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "the"
      },
      "expansion": "the",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "hand"
      },
      "expansion": "hand",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "wave + of + the + hand",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "waves of the hand",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "waves of the hand"
      },
      "expansion": "wave of the hand (plural waves of the hand)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A simple gesture, as used for command, dismissal, or summoning something as if by magic."
      ],
      "id": "en-wave_of_the_hand-en-noun-DY4l~cpI",
      "links": [
        [
          "command",
          "command"
        ],
        [
          "dismissal",
          "dismissal"
        ],
        [
          "magic",
          "magic"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A simple gesture, as used for command, dismissal, or summoning something as if by magic."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "handwave"
        },
        {
          "word": "handwaving"
        },
        {
          "word": "hand waving"
        },
        {
          "word": "handwavium"
        },
        {
          "word": "handwavy"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/weɪv ʌv ðə hænd/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-wave of the hand.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/28/En-au-wave_of_the_hand.ogg/En-au-wave_of_the_hand.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/En-au-wave_of_the_hand.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "wave of the hand"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "wave"
      },
      "expansion": "wave",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "of"
      },
      "expansion": "of",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "the"
      },
      "expansion": "the",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "hand"
      },
      "expansion": "hand",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "wave + of + the + hand",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "waves of the hand",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "waves of the hand"
      },
      "expansion": "wave of the hand (plural waves of the hand)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "handwave"
    },
    {
      "word": "handwaving"
    },
    {
      "word": "hand waving"
    },
    {
      "word": "handwavium"
    },
    {
      "word": "handwavy"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with audio links"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A simple gesture, as used for command, dismissal, or summoning something as if by magic."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "command",
          "command"
        ],
        [
          "dismissal",
          "dismissal"
        ],
        [
          "magic",
          "magic"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A simple gesture, as used for command, dismissal, or summoning something as if by magic."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/weɪv ʌv ðə hænd/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-wave of the hand.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/28/En-au-wave_of_the_hand.ogg/En-au-wave_of_the_hand.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/En-au-wave_of_the_hand.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "wave of the hand"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 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.