Advertisement

Advertisement

View synonyms for waiting

waiting

[ wey-ting ]

noun

  1. a period of waiting; pause, interval, or delay.


adjective

  1. serving or being in attendance:

    waiting man;

    waiting maid;

    waiting woman.

Discover More

Other Words From

  • waiting·ly adverb
Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of waiting1

First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English (noun); wait, -ing 1, -ing 2
Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. in waiting, in attendance, as upon a royal personage.
Discover More

Example Sentences

Kornbluh of GMFUS says this tension is what leads Facebook and other social media platforms to err on the side of waiting—meaning harmful posts can earn millions of views before any action is taken.

From Fortune

My own doctors advocated for watchful waiting, which is where I’m headed.

From Fortune

CSL employees say the checks detailed by CSL’s spokesman happen long after patients enter the centers, sometimes after they’ve signed in, talked with staff and sat in a waiting room before screening.

Even as agencies are publishing their plans to be more inclusive and diverse or creating new diversity and inclusion executive positions, some agency execs fear that agencies are simply playing the waiting game with lengthy plans.

From Digiday

After 50 years of waiting, San Diego is about to retake its seat as dealer in a high-stakes game with potential power providers.

Should lightning strike and Hillary Clinton forgoes a presidential run, Democrats have a nominee in waiting.

A running joke inside the tribe is that the group is like that club with a hundred people waiting outside to get in.

The first day of Liberty, I was hanging around waiting for Ford to come in.

Instead, black models are required to remain meekly, silently off stage, waiting for a turn that may never come.

In a show about single women, Sex and The City was always in a rush to get to the altar—and with a man there waiting.

Sol laughed out of his whiskers, with a big, loose-rolling sound, and sat on the porch without waiting to be asked.

We all rose to our feet, and he shook hands with everybody without waiting to be introduced.

At Felipe's cry, the women waiting in the hall hurried in, wailing aloud as their first glance showed them all was over.

After a bit of waiting, Mac decided that the smoke was floating from a certain direction, and we began to edge carefully that way.

Sam sat opposite him in perfect silence, waiting, with eager curiosity, for the termination of the scene.

Advertisement

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


wait for the other shoe to dropWaiting for Godot