whiles

WYLZ/(h)waɪlz/

5 meanings of whiles

Practice

1
noun
Plural of while. Rare; speakers usually rephrase with times or periods.
Note
A noun plural that looks exactly like the "sometimes" adverb, and the likeness is no accident: that adverb was built from this noun with an -s ending. As a plural it counts separate stretches of time, as in long whiles of silence. A word in front, such as an adjective or article, marks the noun. A lone whiles modifying a verb is the adverb.
2
verb
Third-person singular simple present of while.
She whiles away the rainy afternoons with crossword puzzles.
My grandfather whiles the evening away telling old stories.
Note
The verb form behind "she whiles away the afternoon," where while means to pass time idly, usually together with away. It can also take a person as its object, meaning to keep someone occupied so the time goes by. Keep it apart from wile, a separate verb. While is sometimes written by mistake for wile, so check which meaning the sentence needs before choosing the spelling.
3
conjunctionarchaic
During the time that; at the same time as.
Whiles the harvest lasted, every able hand worked the fields from dawn.
for it so falls out, That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.
1598, William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”
Note
Shakespeare reaches for this conjunction where we would say while. Portia complains that whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door. Today it belongs to archaic and dialect speech. It always heads a clause with its own subject and verb, which is how to tell it from the Scots adverb for "sometimes": whiles we enjoy it is the conjunction, while we get snow whiles is the adverb.

Less common meanings

4
adverbarchaicScotland
On some occasions but not on others, from time to time.
We get snow up here whiles, even in late April.
Man, I've diverted myself whiles with the science of the stars, and can make a shape at calculating a nativity.
1927, John Buchan, Witch Wood
Note
An adverb of frequency that Scots speech has kept and standard English has let go, formed from while plus the old adverbial -s. John Buchan's Witch Wood (1927) still gives it to a speaker musing on his pastimes. It sits comfortably mid-sentence or at the end (we get snow whiles). At the head of a clause it can read as the old conjunction meaning "while", so outside Scots writing, sometimes is the safer choice.
5
adverbarchaicScotland
In the meantime; during the intervening time.
The men rode ahead to scout the pass; whiles, the wagons waited in the valley.
She put the kettle on, and whiles, laid out the cups and the bread.
Note
Walter Scott uses it in Ivanhoe (1819) to set one action running alongside another: "the good knight whiles humming to himself." It shares its spelling and its Scots, archaic standing with the "sometimes" adverb, so context decides between them. If meanwhile fits, this is the sense. If from time to time fits, it is the other. In modern prose, meanwhile is the clearer choice.

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Origin

Formed from the noun "while" with the adverbial suffix "-s"; compare "whilst."