Word.ws English Dictionary

waifing

waifing is the present participle and gerund of waif.

Meaning of waif

Verb

waif (third-person singular simple present waifs, present participle waifing, simple past and past participle waifed)

  1. (transitive) To cast aside or reject, and thus make a waif.
    • It is true that Guy, Count of Ponthieu, holds fief under me, but I have no control over the laws of his realm. And by those laws, he hath right of life and death over all stranded and waifed on his coast.1848, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter I, in Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings; […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, book IX (The Bones of the Dead), pages 293–294

See all 9 meanings of waif

Questions about waifing

What is waifing the present participle and gerund of?
Waifing is the present participle and gerund of waif.

Words near waifing in the dictionary

  1. Waids
  2. waie
  3. waies
  4. waif
  5. waifed
  6. waifing
  7. waifish
  8. waifishly
  9. waifishness
  10. waiflike
  11. waifs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: waifing (page history and authors); waif (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “waifing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/waifing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.