Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use wait in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun, interjection

Wait means to delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness. Example: “Wait here until your car arrives.”

Examples of wait by meaning

verbTo delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.

  • Wait here until your car arrives.
  • I’m still waiting for you to pay me back the money I lent you..
  • The South London tramway replacement will have to wait, possibly five years, because of the slowing down of bus manufacture due to national requirements.1948 March and April, “Notes and News: London Transport Plans”, in Railway Magazine, page 132

verbTo wait tables; to serve customers in a restaurant or other eating establishment.

  • She used to wait in this joint.

verbTo delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by “wait for”.).

  • to wait one’s turn
  • The Court had assembled, to wait events, in the huge antechamber known as the Œil de Boeuf.1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 30

verbTo remain faithful to one’s partner or betrothed during a prolonged period of absence.

  • Don't wait for me, Dagny.1957, Dagny Taggart; Francisco d'Anconia, Ayn Rand's, Atlas Shrugged

nounA delay.

  • I had a very long wait at the airport security check.

nounAn ambush.

  • They lay in wait for the patrol.

More sentences with wait

  • The whole crowd waited for him to deal a real humdinger.From the entry deal
  • Bob's in the can. You can wait a few minutes or just leave it with me.From the entry can
  • Gamers can't wait until a port of the title is released on the new system.From the entry port
  • Christmas comes but once a year, so we can but wait till then.From the entry but
  • You had plenty of time, but you waited until the last minute.From the entry time
  • See my new car here? I can't wait to take this baby for a drive.From the entry baby
  • He killed the engine and turned off the headlights, but remained in the car, waiting.From the entry kill
  • Don't switch it on yet – wait until I've reconnected the pump.From the entry yet
  • She said we waited for three hours, but I'm sure it wasn't that long.From the entry that
  • I was seen quite quickly — I didn't have to wait that long.From the entry that
  • We’re supposed to take the hole at Cronk and wait for the Limited to pass.From the entry hole
  • He waited minutes for a break in the traffic to cross the highway.From the entry break
  • Let's buy a bottle of champagne if Mom comes, we’ll wait and see.From the entry let's
  • We waited for an hour, but they never showed, so we had to take the bus home.From the entry show
  • They are in a hurry; they can’t wait for too long.From the entry long
  • In the game of life, you may find yourself playing the waiting game far too often.From the entry game
  • The kids could hardly wait to tear the paper off their Christmas gifts.From the entry paper
  • Oh, boy! I can't wait to tell my friends about this!From the entry oh boy
  • You wait in the car, I'm just gonna pop in the store.From the entry pop
  • My holidays in Ibiza rocked! I can't wait to go back.From the entry rock
  • There's an old-fashioned phone in the doctor's waiting room - it doesn't work anymore, of course.From the entry phone
  • If you can wait until after my meeting with her, we'll talk then.From the entry until
  • Wait for the light to change before you cross the street.From the entry wait for
  • Did you see how she waits on him hand and foot? It's not healthy.From the entry wait on someone hand and foot
  • With memory that slow, the processor is going to spend most of its time on wait states.From the entry wait state
  • The patient paged through magazines while he waited for the doctor.From the entry page
  • Wait. This doesn't make sense. I mean, the math is not mathing.From the entry math
  • John clicked the Search button and waited for the population of the list to complete.From the entry population
  • So I have to pay first, and then wait in line? That's a stupid rule!From the entry stupid
  • We had a drink in the foyer waiting for the play to start.From the entry foyer
  • As I sat in the waiting room, the minutes stretched into hours.From the entry stretch

Meaning of wait

  1. verb To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.
  2. verb To wait tables; to serve customers in a restaurant or other eating establishment.
  3. verb To delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by “wait for”.).

Full definition of wait

Questions about wait in a sentence

How do you use wait in a sentence?
Wait is used as a verb, noun and interjection. For example: “Wait here until your car arrives.”
What is a short sentence with wait?
“to wait one’s turn”
What does wait mean?
Wait means to delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wait (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use wait in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/wait. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.