A Dictionary of Cont..

wad is generally taken to mean a small mass or
lump of anything soft (He always had a wad
of grim in his mo&h); a small mass of cotton,
wool, or other fibrous or soft material, used for
stuffing, padding, packing; a ball or mass of
something squeezed together (The throwing of
paper wads, or shooting them with rubber bands,
is now an almost sacred tradition of American
schoolchildren). In American usage a wad is
also a roll, as of paper money: American wad of
bills is the equivalent of the English sheaf of
notes. In American slang a wad is a large amount
of money (He’s really got a wad, that guy; he
could buy the whole town if he wanted to). A
stingy person, called in England tightfisted or
close-fisted, is in America most commonly called
a tightwad (There’s no use asking that tightwad
for any money. He won’t give a cent).
Wud is also used to describe the plug of cloth,
tow, paper, or the like, used to hold the powder
or shot, or both, in place in a gun or cartridge.
It is probably from this meaning that the slang
phrase shot his wnd, meaning having done all he
can, expended his resources, derives.
wade is used colloquially in the United States to
mean to make a sharp attack or energetic beginning.
In this sense it is followed by in or into
(You waded single-handed into a man almost
lwice your size). By figurative extension, it may
also mean to criticize severely (Father [Theodore
Roosevelt] spoke in Chicago, wading into
the New York and Indiana machine crowd). In
both uses it is now slightly outmoded.
wages. A few centuries ago this word meant
recompense for services, regardless of the person
being paid. But later it came to mean only money
paid to “a workman or servant.” Originally the
two forms wage and wages were used indiscriminately,
without any difference in meaning, and
the plural form was often followed by a singular
verb, as in their daily wages is so little.
In the United States today wages has lost most
of its connotation of low-paid labor. It is always
used with a plural verb, as in his wages are good.
This is a mass word and cannot be used with
many, few, or a numeral. But the singular form
wage is used with the article a, as in a better
wage. The singular form is preferred as the first
element in a compound, as in a wage increase.
See also honorarium.
wages of sin. Used jocularly, the wages of sin is
a clichi5. It is from Romans 6:23 (For the wages
of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Chri.yt our Lord) where wages,
though plural in form, means a single payment
and is construed as singular.
waist, for a garment or a part of a garment covering
the body from the neck or shoulders to
the waistline, especially in women’s or children’s
dress, though occasionally heard, especially in
relation to children’s dress, is now a!most obsolescent
(Handsome Flaxon finish, Checked white
dimity, Desirable for waists-Sears, Roebuck
and Co., Catalogue No. 135, 1917). Shirtwaist
is still in use, but blouse is now the preferred
word and, with the trend towards mannishness
in women’s styles, shirt has also come to be
used. A recent advertisement in The New
Yorker shows a picture of a young woman in a
woman’s adaptation of a man’s checked shirt.
That the word is to be applied to a garment intended
solely for women (though one is never
certain in these days) is suggested by the text
of the advertisement: “Notice the way Hathaway
cuts and shapes their shirts to a girl’s greatest
advantage. Bosoms are such. Shoulders are
natural. Waistlines go tiny.”
Waist is now usually restricted to meaning the
waistline or the actual, physical waist. Pantywaist,
a slang and rather affected term for an
effeminate and over-elegant young man, is borrowed
from schoolboy derision of a generation
or so ago for boys whose mothers dressed them
in what the other boys regarded as feminine
attire.
waistcoat. See undershirt.
wait on hand and foot. As a term for assiduous
personal service, spoken usually in annoyance
and resentment, to wait on somebody hand and
foot is hackneyed.
waive; wave. Waive, a derivative of waif, meaning
to make waif or to abandon, means basically
to forbear to insist on, to relinquish, to forgo
(He waived the prize money awarded him). In
law it means to relinquish a known right intentionally
(He waived diplomatic immunity in order
to contest the issue). It can also mean to put
aside for the time, to defer, to put aside or dismiss
from consideration (He waived these unpleasant
thoughts from his mind, however, and turned to
the pleasure at hand).
Wave always involves motion. As an intransitive
verb, it means to move with advancing
swells and depressions of surface (At last the
American flag waved over Iwo lima) or to move
the hands in greeting (She waved to us from the
train). As a transitive verb, it means to cause
to wave, to move (The boys frantically waved
their hnnds as we drove awny).
wake; waken. The past tense is woke, waked, or
wakened. The participle is waked, wakened,
woke, or woken. Each of these nine forms may