Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Resembling wax in appearance or texture: Having a smooth, pale, or slightly shiny quality similar to wax.
   • Made of or covered with wax: Composed of or coated in a waxy substance.
   • Flexible, pliable: Capable of being bent or shaped without breaking. (This meaning is less common and often overlaps with 'waxen' in flexibility).
   • Easily influenced; impressionable: Suggestible or easily shaped by external forces, like wax.

Usage Examples

• Resembling wax:
  • The waxy surface of the leaves helped repel water.
  • Her skin had a waxy pallor after the illness.
• Made of or covered with wax:
  • The waxy coating on the cheese helps preserve it.
  • He held a waxy candle in his hand.
• Flexible (less common):
  • The waxy stems of the young plant bent easily in the wind.
• Easily influenced:
  • At that waxy age, teenagers are highly susceptible to peer pressure.

Advanced Usage

• "Waxy flexibility": A medical/psychological term (catalepsy) describing a state where a person's limbs can be positioned and will hold that position, as if made of pliable wax.
  • The patient exhibited waxy flexibility, a symptom of the condition.
• "Waxy degeneration": A pathological term for tissues (e.g., in liver or muscle) that take on a pale, wax-like appearance.
  • The biopsy revealed evidence of waxy degeneration.

Variants and Related Words

• Waxen (adj): Very similar to 'waxy,' often used for pale complexion () or being made of wax (). Can also imply malleability.
• Wax (n/v): The substance itself; to apply wax; to increase (as in the moon 'waxes').
• Waxiness (n): The quality or state of being waxy.

Synonyms

• Pallid: Pale (for complexion).
• Pliable: Flexible, bendable.
• Impressionable: Easily influenced.
• Lustrous: Shiny (when referring to a wax-like shine).

Antonyms

• Ruddy: Having a healthy red color (opposite of waxy pallor).
• Brittle: Easily broken (opposite of flexible meaning).
• Stubborn: Unyielding, not easily influenced.

Related Phrases/Idioms

• A waxy build-up: Refers to an accumulation of a wax-like substance, often in a technical or biological context (e.g., in ears or on machinery).
  • The doctor removed the waxy build-up from the patient's ear.
• (Slang, archaic) To get waxy: To become angry. (Note: This is an old, informal usage not directly related to the primary definitions).
  • He got rather waxy when he heard the news.

Adjective

1. having the paleness of wax
   • the poor face with the same awful waxen pallor- Bram Stoker
   • the soldier turned his waxlike features toward him
   • a thin face with a waxy paleness
2. capable of being bent or flexed or twisted without breaking
   • a flexible wire
   • a pliant young tree
3. easily impressed or influenced
   • an impressionable youngster
   • an impressionable age
   • a waxy mind
4. made of or covered with wax
   • waxen candles
   • careful, the floor is waxy