waits

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of wait.

   The dog waits by the door until its owner comes home.

   A crowd waits outside the theater long before the doors open.

   Note

   The everyday present-tense verb, and its pattern matters. In modern English it takes for before an object: she waits for the bus. The bare transitive use, as in he waits the outcome, is archaic and has long been superseded by wait for. In American English it can also mean serving in a restaurant, as in he waits tables on weekends.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of wait.

   The waits between connecting flights stretched into several hours.

   Patients complained about the lengthy waits in the emergency room.

   Note

   Two quite different histories share this plural. Most often it counts delays, as in long waits at the airport or waits between trains, because a wait in that sense is countable. The older plural belonged to watchmen. An obsolete wait was a watchman. In Britain the waits came to mean musical watchmen, and even the hautboys they played. That line leads to the Christmas street musicians.

3. 3
   nounBritishplural

   A band of musicians or singers who perform in the streets, especially around Christmas.

   Like modern carolers going door to door, but performing as an organized group.

   On Christmas Eve the waits stopped beneath each lit window to play a tune.

   Householders left out warm cider for the waits as they passed through the village.

   Similarcarolers, serenaders

   Note

   A British word, and one that exists only in the plural. The waits are a band, so they take a plural verb: the waits were singing below. There is no comfortable singular for one member, and a lone wait would be read as a delay. The word belongs to carol-season scenes such as village streets, lit windows and Christmas Eve. It grew out of the old watchmen's plural.

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