[f. WAVE v. + -ER1.]
† 1. One who vacillates. Obs.
1667. Waterhouse, Fire Lond., 189. No waver in Judgment, have I, through Gods mercy, ever been.
2. One who waves, or causes to undulate, swing or flutter.
1835. T. Mitchell, Aristoph. Acharn. 1059, note. Groupes of tumblers, jugglers, ball-players, and wavers of the torch.
1860. W. C. Clark, in Galton, Vac. Tour. (1861), 46. The wavers of flags, and the brandishers of daggers.
1869. ‘Mark Twain,’ Innoc. Abr., xiii. (1872), 91. The … house-tops … burst into a snow storm of waving handkerchiefs, and the wavers of the same mingled their cheers with those of the masses below.
† 3. A name for the star Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Australis. Obs.
1556. Recorde, Cast. Knowl., IV. 267 [marg.]. The Wauer.
4. Printing. See quots. Also waver roller.
1882. Southward, Pract. Print., 471. Next set in their places the wavers and the inkers.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIII. 706/1. As the carriage returns, this strip of ink is distributed on the inking table by rollers placed diagonally across the machine. The diagonal position gives them a waving motion; hence they are called wavers.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., Waver rollers, rollers which distribute ink on the ink table in a diagonal direction. Wavers, short term for ‘waver rollers.’
5. An implement for making the hair wavy.
1895. Army & Navy Stores List, 15 Sept., 180/2. Hair Wavers … Price per box, containing 5 wavers, 0/81/2.
1909. Daily Chron., 1 Oct., 7/4. These wavers may be left in the slightly dampened hair for an hour or two, and the result will be a soft, natural-looking wave.
