wave-form

or wave·form

[ weyv-fawrm ]

noun

, Physics.

1. the shape of a wave; a graph obtained by plotting the instantaneous values of a periodic quantity against the time.

Word History and Origins

Origin of wave-form¹

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

Yet the ear, or the ear and the brain together, can resolve this complicated wave-form into its constituents, and this is done more easily if we listen to the sound with resonators, the pitch of which corresponds, or nearly corresponds, to the frequencies of the partials.

From Project Gutenberg

It is then possible to see whether the "wave-form" of the current is what it ought to be.

From Project Gutenberg

Morrow's composition, a nervy layering of strings, seems to whisper and sigh like the wind at a broken window, and Rachel Shipp's wave-form lighting sees the dancers alternately picked out in clear, watery silver and dissolving into a wash of black.

From The Guardian

It has to do with the frequency and the wave-form of the noise coming out of the exhaust.

From Time Magazine Archive

For he imagined his impulses, emotions, tendencies all taking this wave-form, sweeping his moods up to a certain point, then dropping back into his centre—the Sea, he called it— which held steady below all temporary fluctuations—only to form once more and happen all over again.

From Project Gutenberg