wait in the wings
wait in the wings verb: to be about to become important or central.
Verb
wait in the wings (third-person singular simple present waits in the wings, present participle waiting in the wings, simple past and past participle waited in the wings)
- To be about to become important or central.
- Theire ^([sic]) is something obscene about a person spending $40 a seat to be told that redemtion ^([sic]) is a spaceship and that "god" is waiting in the wings to forgive the sins of the flesh.1984 February 4, Michael Bronski, “Cats: Straight and Boring”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 28, page 17
- He's there in the dark, he's there in my heart / He waits in the wings, he's gotta play a part / Trouble is a friend, yeah, trouble is a friend of mine, oh oh!2009 September 1, Lenka, Tawgs Salter, “Trouble Is a Friend”, in Lenka, performed by Lenka
Forms of wait in the wings
| third-person singular present | waits in the wings |
|---|---|
| present participle | waiting in the wings |
| past participle | waited in the wings |
| past | waited in the wings |
Questions about wait in the wings
- What does wait in the wings mean?
- Wait in the wings means to be about to become important or central.
- What part of speech is wait in the wings?
- Wait in the wings is a verb.
- What is the past tense of wait in the wings?
- The past tense of wait in the wings is waited in the wings.
Words near wait in the wings in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wait in the wings (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-wait in the wings.ogg, En-us-wait in the wings.oga.
Cite this entry: “wait in the wings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wait_in_the_wings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.