Definition of "wax"

What really started the corn sprouting on Broadway was a lugubrious tune by Louisiana's Jimmie Davis called It Makes No Difference Now. In the late '30s Decca's Recording Chief David Kapp heard this Texas hit and got it on wax.

1943, Time

He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

"I was reassigned over from the 9th when the battalion CO got waxed on the road leading in." Ben kept his dismay to himself. Here was one more officer in the 90th who'd been on the job only hours or days, replacing commanders killed or wounded....

2005, David L. Robbins, Liberation Road: A Novel of World War II and the Red Ball Express, page 83

"You telling me you know who really waxed him and your mom?" "Yeah," she lied. "Just who pulled the trigger or who ordered it to be pulled?"

2009, Dean R. Koontz, Ed Gorman, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: City of Night, page 106

And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.

c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]

For nature, crescent, does not grow alone In thews and bulks, but, as this temple waxes, <be> The inward service of the mind and soul Grows wide withal.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iii], page 155

And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties ; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […].

1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

Ah, ſirrah, by my ſay, it waxes late: I’ll to my reſt.

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene v]

He waxes desperate with imagination.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iii], page 257

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Jeremiah 5:27

You behold, Sir, how he waxeth Wroth at your Abode here.

1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume 2, London: Millar, page 289

The stars grew pale and paler still till at last they vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out against her sickly face.

1885, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 5, in King Solomon's Mines

In the night, or the gloomy chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death.

1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

‘That's him to a T,’ she would murmur; or, ‘Just wait till he reads this’; or, ‘Ah, won't that put him in a wax!’

1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 161