waiting

English

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• (RP) IPA: /ˈweɪtɪŋ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪtɪŋ

Verb

waiting

1. Present participle of wait.

   Your guest has been waiting for you. (progressive)

   Waiting for something to happen is part of the job. (gerund)

   They hurried into the waiting car. (participle used as adjective)

   • 1874, John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, I. 122.

     In all ages, men have fought over words, without waiting to know what the words really signified.

Derived terms

• waiting game
• waiting room

Noun

waiting (countable and uncountable; plural waitings)

1. (obsolete) Watching.
2. The act of staying or remaining in expectation.
   • 1876, Richard Watson Gilder, The New Day, A Poem in Songs and Sonnets

     There was an awful waiting in the earth, / As if a mystery greatened to its birth.

3. Attendance, service.
   • 1871–72, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chapter 36

     Green glasses for hock, and excellent waiting at table.

Derived terms

• in waiting

Translations

Watching

The act of staying or remaining in expectation

• Dutch: wachten (nl), afwachten (nl)
• Finnish: odotus, odottaminen
• French: attente (fr) f
• Italian: attesa (it) f

• Japanese: 待つこと (ja) (matsu koto)
• Norwegian: vente (no)
• Russian: ожидание (ru) (ožidánije) n

Attendance, service

• Dutch: bedienen (nl)

References

• waiting in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Statistics

• Most common English words before 1923: command · etc. · broke · #772: waiting · political · reading · German