Word.ws English Dictionary

wait tables

wait tables verb: to wait as a server in a restaurant or other dine-in eatery.

Verb

wait tables (third-person singular simple present waits tables, present participle waiting tables, simple past and past participle waited tables)

  1. (stative) To wait as a server in a restaurant or other dine-in eatery.
    • At 21, I moved to New York City to pursue acting. I waited tables, auditioned, pieced together a life out of odd jobs and ambition.2026 April 22, Jillian Sanders, “The Danger of Surrendering Your Financial Independence in a Relationship”, in TIME, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2026

Forms of wait tables

third-person singular presentwaits tables
present participlewaiting tables
past participlewaited tables
pastwaited tables
alternative formwait on tables

Questions about wait tables

What does wait tables mean?
Wait tables means to wait as a server in a restaurant or other dine-in eatery.
What part of speech is wait tables?
Wait tables is a verb.
What is the past tense of wait tables?
The past tense of wait tables is waited tables.

Words near wait tables in the dictionary

  1. wait out
  2. wait staff
  3. wait staffs
  4. wait state
  5. wait states
  6. wait tables
  7. wait till the clouds roll by
  8. wait time
  9. wait times
  10. wait unemployment
  11. wait up

Source and license

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