waiting
English
editPronunciation
editEtymology 1
editFrom Middle English waitinge, waytynge, waitende, weytende, waitand, waytand, equivalent to wait -ing.
Verb
editwaiting
- present participle and gerund of wait
- Your guest has been waiting for you. (progressive) They hurried into the waiting car. (participle used as adjective)
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.
Etymology 2
editFrom Middle English waitynge, waytynge, equivalent to wait -ing.
Noun
editwaiting (countable and uncountable, plural waitings)
- (obsolete) Watching, observation; keeping watch, guarding.
- The act of staying or remaining in expectation.
- Waiting for something to happen is part of the job. (gerund)
- 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.
- 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.
- Attendance, service.
- 1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXXVI, in Middlemarch […], volume II, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book IV, page 227:
- But it had never occurred to him that he should live in any other than what he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses for hock, and excellent waiting at table.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editthe act of staying or remaining in expectation
|
attendance, service
References
edit- “waiting”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
Categories:
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
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- Rhymes:English/eɪtɪŋ
- Rhymes:English/eɪtɪŋ/2 syllables
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms suffixed with -ing (participial)
- English non-lemma forms
- English verb forms
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English terms suffixed with -ing (gerund noun)
- English lemmas
- English nouns
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