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waits

 - 4 dictionary results

wait

  [weyt]
Use waits in a Sentence
–verb (used without object)
1. to remain inactive or in a state of repose, as until something expected happens (often fol. by for, till, or until): to wait for the bus to arrive.
2. (of things) to be available or in readiness: A letter is waiting for you.
3. to remain neglected for a time: a matter that can wait.
4. to postpone or delay something or to be postponed or delayed: We waited a week and then bought the house. Your vacation will have to wait until next month.
5. to look forward to eagerly: I'm just waiting for the day somebody knocks him down.
–verb (used with object)
6. to continue as one is in expectation of; await: to wait one's turn at a telephone booth.
7. to postpone or delay in expectation: Don't wait supper for me.
8. Archaic. (of things) to be in readiness for; be reserved for; await: Glory waits thee.
9. Archaic. to attend upon or escort, esp. as a sign of respect.
–noun
10. an act or instance of waiting or awaiting; delay; halt: a wait at the border.
11. a period or interval of waiting: There will be a long wait between trains.
12. Theater.
a. the time between two acts, scenes, or the like.
b. stage wait.
13. British.
a. waits, (formerly) a band of musicians employed by a city or town to play music in parades, for official functions, etc.
b. a street musician, esp. a singer.
c. one of a band of carolers.
d. a piece sung by carolers, esp. a Christmas carol.
14. Obsolete. a watchman.
—Verb phrases
15. wait on,
a. to perform the duties of an attendant or servant for.
b. to supply the wants of a person, as serving a meal or serving a customer in a store.
c. to call upon or visit (a person, esp. a superior): to wait on Her Majesty at the palace.
d. Falconry. (of a hawk) to soar over ground until prey appears.
e. Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. to wait for (a person); await.
f. Also, wait upon. to await (an event).
16. wait up,
a. to postpone going to bed to await someone's arrival.
b. Informal. to halt and wait for another to join one, as in running or walking: Wait up, I can't walk so fast.
—Idioms
17. lie in wait, to wait in ambush: The army lay in wait in the forest.
18. wait table. table (def. 26).
Origin:
1150–1200; (v.) early ME waiten < AF waitier; OF guaitier < Gmc; c. OHG wahtēn to watch, deriv. of wahta a watch (see wake 1 ); (n.) late ME < AF deriv. of waitier

Synonyms:
1. await, linger, abide, delay. Wait, tarry imply pausing to linger and thereby putting off further activity until later. Wait usually implies staying for a limited time and for a definite purpose, that is, for something expected: to wait for a train. Tarry is a somewhat archaic word for wait, but it suggests lingering, perhaps aimlessly delaying, or pausing (briefly) in a journey: to tarry on the way home; to tarry overnight at an inn.

Usage note:
15e, f. Sometimes considered objectionable in standard usage, the idiom wait on meaning “to wait for, to await (a person)” is largely confined to speech or written representations of speech. It is most common in the Midland and Southern United States: Let's not wait on Rachel, she's always late. Wait on or upon (an event) does not have a regional pattern and occurs in a wide variety of contexts: We will wait on (or upon) his answer and make our decision then. The completion of the merger waits upon news of a drop in interest rates.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To waits
wait   (wāt)   
v.   wait·ed, wait·ing, waits

v.   intr.

    1. To remain or rest in expectation: waiting for the guests to arrive. See Synonyms at stay1.

    2. To tarry until another catches up.

  2. To remain or be in readiness: lunch waiting on the table.

  3. To remain temporarily neglected, unattended to, or postponed: The trip will have to wait.

  4. To work as a waiter or waitress.

v.   tr.

  1. To remain or stay in expectation of; await: wait one's turn.

  2. Informal To delay (a meal or an event); postpone: They waited lunch for us.

  3. To be a waiter or waitress at: wait tables.

n.  

  1. The act of waiting or the time spent waiting.

  2. Chiefly British

    1. One of a group of musicians employed, usually by a city, to play in parades or public ceremonies.

    2. One of a group of musicians or carolers who perform in the streets at Christmastime.

Phrasal Verb(s):
wait on/upon

  1. To serve the needs of; be in attendance on.

  2. To make a formal call on; visit.

  3. To follow as a result; depend on.

  4. To await: They're waiting on my decision.

wait outTo delay until the termination of: wait out a war; waited out the miniskirt craze.
wait up

  1. To postpone going to bed in anticipation of something or someone.

  2. Informal To stop or pause so that another can catch up: Let's wait up for the stragglers.


[Middle English waiten, from Old North French waitier, to watch, of Germanic origin; see weg- in Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

wait  (v.)
c.1200, "to watch with hostile intent, lie in wait for," from O.N.Fr. waitier "to watch" (Fr. guetter), from Frank. *wahton (cf. Du. wacht "a watching," O.H.G. wahten, Ger. wachten "to watch, to guard;" O.H.G. wahhon "to watch, be awake," O.E. wacian "to be awake;" see wake (v.)). General sense of "remain in some place" is from 1375; meaning "serve as an attendant at a table" is from 1568. The noun is first attested c.1300. To wait (something) out "endure a period of waiting" is recorded from 1909, originally Amer.Eng., in ref. to baseball batters trying to draw a base on balls. Waiting game is recorded from 1890. Waiting room is attested from 1683. Waiting list is recorded from 1897; the verb wait-list "to put (someone) on a waiting list" is recorded from 1960.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Computing Dictionary

WAITS
/wayts/ The mutant cousin of TOPS-10 used on a handful of systems at SAIL up to 1990. There was never an "official" expansion of WAITS (the name itself having been arrived at by a rather sideways process), but it was frequently glossed as "West-coast Alternative to ITS". Though WAITS was less visible than ITS, there was frequent exchange of people and ideas between the two communities, and innovations pioneered at WAITS exerted enormous indirect influence. The early screen modes of Emacs, for example, were directly inspired by WAITS's "E" editor - one of a family of editors that were the first to do "real-time editing", in which the editing commands were invisible and where one typed text at the point of insertion/overwriting. The modern style of multi-region windowing is said to have originated there, and WAITS alumni at XEROX PARC and elsewhere played major roles in the developments that led to the XEROX Star, the Macintosh, and the Sun workstations. Bucky bits were also invented there thus, the ALT key on every IBM PC is a WAITS legacy. One notable WAITS feature seldom duplicated elsewhere was a news-wire interface that allowed WAITS hackers to read, store, and filter AP and UPI dispatches from their terminals; the system also featured a still-unusual level of support for what is now called "multimedia" computing, allowing analog audio and video signals to be switched to programming terminals.
Ken Shoemake adds:
Some administrative body told us we needed a name for the operating system, and that "SAIL" wouldn't do. (Up to that point I don't think it had an official name.) So the anarchic denizens of the lab proposed names and voted on them. Although I worked on the OS used by CCRMA folks (a parasitic subgroup), I was not writing WAITS code. Those who were, proposed "SAINTS", for (I think) Stanford AI New Time-sharing System. Thinking of ITS, and AI, and the result of many people using one machine, I proposed the name WAITS. Since I invented it, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that it had no official meaning. Nevertheless, the lab voted that as their favorite; upon which the disgruntled system programmers declared it the "Worst Acronym Invented for a Time-sharing System"! But it was in keeping with the creative approach to acronyms extant at the time, including self-referential ones. For me it was fun, if a little unsettling, to have an "acronym" that wasn't. I have no idea what the voters thought. :)
[The Jargon File]
(2003-11-17)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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