Word.ws English Dictionary

wait-a-while

wait-a-while noun: synonym of wait-a-bit.

Noun

wait-a-while (plural wait-a-whiles)

  1. (South Africa) Synonym of wait-a-bit.
    Synonyms:
    wait-a-bit
  2. (Australia) Any of several thorny Australian vines or shrubs which impede passage, especially Acacia cuspidifolia of Western Australia, Smilax australis of eastern Australia and the Northern Territory, and lawyer vine.
    • In the new clearing by the creek where he had felled most of the big stuff, she attacked the landscape with anger, grubbing out the wait-a-while and bush-sword that was still guzzling round the stumps.1979, Thea Astley, Hunting the Wild Pineapple, Nelson, page 136

Synonyms of wait-a-while

Forms of wait-a-while

pluralwait-a-whiles

Origin of wait-a-while

Originally after South African Dutch wacht-en-beetje; compare wait-a-bit.

Questions about wait-a-while

What does wait-a-while mean?
Wait-a-while means synonym of wait-a-bit.
What part of speech is wait-a-while?
Wait-a-while is a noun.
What is the plural of wait-a-while?
The plural of wait-a-while is wait-a-whiles.

Words near wait-a-while in the dictionary

  1. wait upon hand and foot
  2. wait'll
  3. wait-a-bit
  4. wait-a-bits
  5. wait-a-minute
  6. wait-a-while
  7. wait-a-whiles
  8. wait-and-see
  9. wait-awhile
  10. wait-free
  11. wait-list

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wait-a-while (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: “wait-a-while.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wait-a-while. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.