wait

Less common meanings

4. 4
   serve foodverbUSintransitive

   To serve customers their food and drinks in a restaurant or other eating establishment.

   He waited on tables throughout his years in graduate school.

   Students often wait on tables to earn extra money during the summer.

   UsageUsually wait tables or wait on tables: she waits tables at a diner. The bare verb also works: she used to wait here.

   Similarserve

5. 5
   stay faithfulverbintransitive

   To stay faithful to a partner or fiancé throughout a long period of absence.

   He asked whether she would wait during his long deployment.

   When he shipped out for a three-year tour, she promised to wait for him, and she never dated anyone else.

   UsageUsed alone or with for someone: will you wait for me?

   Note

   A promise more than a pause. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957), "Don't wait for me" releases a lover from that promise. Context separates this sense from the everyday meaning: will you wait? asked before a deployment is about faithfulness, not patience. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957. aynrand.org
   • The quotation occurs in the novel: Francisco d'Anconia tells Dagny Taggart not to wait for him, implicitly releasing her from romantic loyalty. southafricawiki.co.za
6. 6
   verbobsolete

   To watch with harmful intent; to lie in wait for someone.

   Note

   This sense sits closest to the word's roots. Wait came through Anglo-Norman from a Frankish verb meaning "to watch, guard," and French guetter is a cousin. On its own the English verb no longer carries menace. The hostility now survives only in fixed phrases, above all lie in wait, where wait is the old noun for an ambush. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • Wait came through Anglo-Norman from a Frankish verb meaning 'to watch, guard'. en.wiktionary.org
   • French guetter shares the same origin. en.wiktionary.org
   • The noun wait in lie in wait means an ambush. en.wiktionary.org
7. 7
   escortverbobsoletetransitive

   To attend on or accompany someone, especially with ceremony or respect.

   He chose a thousand horse, the flower of all / His warlike troops, to wait the funeral.

   1697, Virgil, “Aeneis”

   Remorse and heaviness of heart shall wait thee, / And everlasting anguish be thy portion.

   1714, Nicholas Rowe, The Tragedy of Jane Shore

   Note

   Escort and honor, not service at table: Dryden's horsemen are chosen "to wait the funeral," a guard of respect. The object is the person or occasion attended. Nicholas Rowe's "remorse… shall wait thee" (1714) shows the frame drifting toward the "follow as a consequence" sense. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • Dryden describes horsemen chosen to accompany a funeral ceremonially, using the words “to wait the funeral.” gutenberg.org
   • The historical transitive sense means to attend or accompany someone or an occasion with ceremony or respect. en.wiktionary.org
   • The quotation is from Nicholas Rowe's Jane Shore; Lord Hastings speaks the line, whose context supports the consequence interpretation. gutenberg.org
   • The original publication year of Jane Shore is 1714. huntington.org
8. 8
   hold a mealverbcolloquial

   To defer or postpone something, especially a meal.

   Call your mom and tell her not to wait dinner for us, since traffic on the highway is terrible.

   Montague Thorold, who impatiently watched her wherever she went, came to tell her that his mother waited breakfast for her.

   1791, Charlotte Smith, Celestina

   Note

   Charlotte Smith's Celestina (1791) has a mother who "waited breakfast for her."

9. 9
   computer delaynounabbreviationellipsis

   Short for wait state: a delay of one or more clock cycles that a processor adds while waiting for slower memory or devices to respond.

   Each wait keeps the CPU aligned with slower memory timing.

   The controller inserts a wait whenever the data bus is busy.

   Note

   Engineers clip wait state to plain wait. Each one marks a stretch in which a processor or task cannot proceed, for example while slower memory or an I/O device responds, or until an interrupt arrives. The stall may hold up the whole computer or only a single task.

10. 10
    ambushnoununcountable

    An ambush, the act of hiding and watching for someone in order to attack them by surprise.

    Photographers were lying in wait for the singer outside her hotel.

    Highwaymen lay in wait along the dark stretch of forest road.

    UsageAlmost always in lie in wait, past lay in wait, with for naming the target: lay in wait for the singer.

    Similarambush

    Note

    Lie in wait is where this noun lives now, with for naming the target: they lay in wait for the patrol. Milton could still use it outside that phrase in Paradise Lost (1667), with "an enemy in wait." Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, first published in 1667. en.wikisource.org
    • Paradise Lost uses the ambush sense with sit rather than lie, in the quoted phrase (with modernized spelling). en.wikisource.org
11. 11
    Christmas musiciannounUKcountableplural

    A member of a band of musicians who sing or play through the night or early morning, especially at Christmas; a serenader or musical watchman.

    On Christmas Eve the waits went from house to house playing carols, and people gave them coins and hot drinks.

    On frosty nights the waits moved from house to house, playing for coins.

    UsageUsed with the: the waits sang carols from house to house.

    Similarserenader, caroler

    Note

    Beaumont and Fletcher's "Hark! are the waits abroad?" already treats them as a familiar sound. By Algernon Blackwood's Christmas in England (1890), the waits go from house to house singing carols until Christmas Day dawns. Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • The quotation occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's The Captain. en.wiktionary.org
    • Algernon Blackwood's Christmas in England was published in 1890. en.wikisource.org
    • Christmas in England describes waits singing carols from house to house until Christmas Day dawns. en.wikisource.org
12. 12
    verbobsolete

    To follow upon or accompany something as a consequence.

    Note

    Consequences become the attendants. Honor, ruin or reward is pictured following a person the way a retinue follows a lord. The grammatical subject is the outcome, never the person who earns it. Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • In this sense, 'wait' means to accompany or follow as a consequence. en.wiktionary.org
    • In the active construction described, the consequence is the subject and the affected person is the object. en.wiktionary.org
13. 13
    nounobsolete

    A person who keeps watch; a watchman.

    Note

    The watchman is the plainest descendant of the Frankish "watch, guard" root: a wait was simply someone who kept watch. The word has long since dropped out in this meaning, and modern readers will not recognize it. Its echo survives in the Christmas waits, the musicians once known as musical watchmen. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Wait derives from a Frankish root meaning 'watch, guard'. en.wiktionary.org
    • A wait could mean a watchman. en.wiktionary.org
    • The Christmas waits preserve the name of earlier musicians who kept watch. gutenberg.org
14. 14
    nounobsoleteUKplural

    A type of oboe or hautboy played by town musicians.

    Note

    The instruments took the name of the town players who blew them, and the word appears in the plural. Philemon Holland's translation of Livy (1600) shows how close the two meanings sit: "the waits should sound the hautboies." There the waits are the players and the hautboys the instruments. In older British texts, check whether waits means the people or the pipes. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • The instrument sense is recorded in the plural. en.wiktionary.org
    • Philemon Holland's translation of Livy was published in 1600. libguides.willamette.edu
    • The quoted wording is attested in Wiktionary's citation. en.wiktionary.org
    • In this quotation, waits denotes the performers and hautboies their instruments. en.wiktionary.org