wait for Godot

English

Etymology

Refers to the surreal comic play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, in which two tramps engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting "Godot", who never arrives.

Verb

wait for Godot (third-person singular simple present waits for Godot, present participle waiting for Godot, simple past and past participle waited for Godot)

1. (idiomatic) To wait hopelessly
   • 2000, Susan Estrich, Sex and Power, Riverhead Books, →ISBN, page 96:

     But waiting for the connection between gender and parenting to be broken is waiting for Godot; pretending that children have no impact on a woman's career is turning the exception into the rule.

   • 1984, Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, →ISBN, page 263:

     We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another ­– doubtless very different – St. Benedict.