Wait

How to spell wait

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce wait

What does wait mean?

1. verbTo stay where one is or delay action until a particular time or event.
2. nounA period of time spent before something happens.

Wait in a sentence

• verb

  Please wait here until the doctor calls your name.

• noun

  The wait at the pharmacy was nearly forty minutes.

• verb

  They had to wait an hour for the next train.

• noun

  A long wait for the results made everyone anxious.

Where does wait come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from the Old North French waitier, meaning 'to watch' or 'to keep guard', which itself traces back to a Germanic root related to the idea of being alert and watchful; the same root lies behind the modern English words 'watch' and 'wake'. English took it up in the 1200s, when waiting genuinely meant lying in wait or keeping a lookout, often for an enemy or for prey. Over the centuries the sense softened from active watching to the gentler modern meaning of staying in one place until something happens or someone arrives. The serving sense, as in a waiter who attends at table, grew from the older idea of attending upon or watching over a person. The spelling trap is purely the homophone: wait sounds exactly like weight, the measure of heaviness, which has an entirely separate origin and an extra silent g.

How the word is built

• wait (single root, from Old North French waitier 'to watch')

Words that sound like wait

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• weight: How heavy something is, measured as a quantity; also the importance or influence of something.