Wox

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Archaic past tense of the verb wax, meaning that something grew larger or increased in size, strength, or amount
2. The old past form of wax, used when describing a thing that developed, expanded, or became greater over time
3. An obsolete simple past form of wax indicating that a person or thing had grown, swelled, or become more intense

Etymology: "Wox" is the simple past of "wax," the verb meaning to grow or increase, as in the moon waxing. The verb descends from Old English "weaxan," and its noun counterpart, meaning the beeswax used for candles and seals, is a separate word with a shared ancestry. Across the Germanic languages the noun appears in a long family of cognates: Dutch "was," German "Wachs," Swedish "vax," and Icelandic "vax," along with Lithuanian "vaškas" and Proto-Slavic "voskъ," which points to a very old shared root. The past tense "wox" is an older form that survived in English dialect and older writing, and it was once a standard way to write the past of "wax." Its vowel is the regular outcome of the old strong verb pattern, which is why it sounds like a distant relative of "wake" or "awoke" rather than a modern regular verb.

Synonyms: grow, swell, increase

Antonyms: wane, diminish