English▸ verb [with object] refrain from insisting on or using (a right or claim):
he will waive all rights to the money.
▪ refrain from demanding compliance with (a rule or fee):
her tuition fees would be waived.
Waive is sometimes confused with wave. Waive means ‘refrain from insisting on or demanding’, as in he will waive all rights to the money or her fees would be waived, whereas the much more common word wave means ‘move to and fro’. A waiver is a document recording that a right or claim has been waived, whereas to waver is to move in a quivering way or be undecided between two alternatives.
– ORIGIN Middle English (originally as a legal term relating to removal of the protection of the law): from an Anglo-Norman French variant of Old French gaiver ‘allow to become a waif, abandon’.