Past tense of wait
regular verb
The past tense of wait is waited. The past participle is also waited.
Forms of wait
| Base form (V1) | wait /weɪt/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | waited /ˈweɪt.ɪd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | waited /ˈweɪt.ɪd/ |
| Present participle | waiting /ˈweɪtɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | waits /weɪts/ |
Waited in a sentence
- The whole crowd waited for him to deal a real humdinger.From the entry deal
- You had plenty of time, but you waited until the last minute.From the entry time
- She said we waited for three hours, but I'm sure it wasn't that long.From the entry that
- He waited minutes for a break in the traffic to cross the highway.From the entry break
- We waited for an hour, but they never showed, so we had to take the bus home.From the entry show
Meaning of wait
- verb To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.
- verb To wait tables; to serve customers in a restaurant or other eating establishment.
- verb To delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by “wait for”.).
Questions about the past tense of wait
- What is the past tense of wait?
- The past tense of wait is waited.
- What is the past participle of wait?
- The past participle of wait is waited.
- Is wait a regular or irregular verb?
- Wait is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wait (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of wait.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/wait. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.