make waves
"make-waves" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“make waves” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To cause a disturbance.
Corpus desk
Index EN-make-waves · make waves · English
make waves · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "M" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | make waves |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “make waves” in English
Rare enough to double-check
make waves is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
make waves doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Derived from disruptions caused by waves in water. The correct English form is make waves, spelled M-A-K-E- -W-A-V-E-S.
Definition
- 1To cause a disturbance.
- 2To upset the status quo.
- 3Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see make, wave.
Etymology
Derived from disruptions caused by waves in water.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.