Etymology: < Anglo-Norman waive, weyve; probably to be read as weyvé (= weyvee ), past participle of weyver waive v.¹

Etymology: Middle English weyven , < Anglo-Norman weyver (whence Law Latin waiviare , waviare ), dialect variant of Old French gaiver , guesver (early modern French in Cotgrave gayver , guesver , guever ) to allow to become a ‘waif’, to abandon, < Anglo-Norman weyf (feminine weyve ), Old French gaif (feminine gaive , gueive , etc.) adj.n.: see waif n.¹Johnson 1755 spells this verb as wave , and places it as a sense of wave v., though (following Skinner) he assigns to it a separate derivation from ‘French guesver.’

Etymology: < Old Norse veifa (Norwegian veiva ) to wave, swing (transitive with object in dative; also rarely reflexive), corresponding to Middle Dutch weiven to wave, swing, also (= modern Dutch wuiven ) to beckon, signal (? whence weve v.¹ Nautical), and Old High German -weiben (in ziweiben to destroy, disperse, ungeweibet unbroken) < Old Germanic *waiƀjan . A parallel formation, Old Germanic *waiƀōjan , is represented by Old High German weibôn , Middle High German weiben , to move hither and thither, wander, waver; these senses (compare branch II below) may, though not recorded, have belonged to the Old Norse word. The root, Old Germanic *wῑƀ- < Indo-European *weip- , is a variant of Old Germanic *wῑp- < Indo-European *weib- as in Latin vibrāre (see vibrate v.). Both these roots are represented, with the general sense to wave or swing, to shake, both in Germanic and other languages, and each of them has a variant with prefixed s : see sweep v., swift adj. (The Indo-European *weip-, *weib-, to wind, represented, e.g. by Old English wǽfan, Gothic biwaibjan to wrap, clothe, are probably unconnected.) Compare Middle English wēve-n , weve v.¹, which is of cognate if not identical origin, and has most of the senses below. In some contexts it is difficult to distinguish between waive v.¹ and v.², and probably some shades of meaning may have originated from confusion between the two. See also wave v., the relations of which to this verb are to some extent uncertain.