waite
waite is the archaic spelling of wait.
Meaning of wait
Verb
wait (third-person singular simple present waits, present participle waiting, simple past and past participle waited)
- To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.
- Wait here until your car arrives.
- Synonyms:
- hold one's breath
- To wait tables; to serve customers in a restaurant or other eating establishment.
- She used to wait in this joint.
- To delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by “wait for”.)
- to wait one’s turn
- To attend on; to accompany; especially, to attend with ceremony or respect.
- He chose a thousand horse, the flower of all / His warlike troops, to wait the funeral.1697, Virgil, “Aeneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- bestand
- To attend as a consequence; to follow upon; to accompany.
- To defer or postpone (especially a meal).
- Montague Thorold, who impatiently watched her wherever she went, came to tell her that his mother waited breakfast for her.1791, Charlotte Smith, Celestina, Broadview, published 2004, page 185
- Synonyms:
- defer
Proper noun capitalized: Waite
Waite (countable and uncountable, plural Waites)
- A surname originating as an occupation for a watchman.
- A town in Washington County, Maine, United States, named after a lumberman.
Forms of waite
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | waites |
| present participle | waiting |
| past participle | waited |
| past | waited |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Waites |
| alternative form | Waight |
| alternative form | Waitt |
Origin of waite
English surname for a watchman of Norman origin, from the verb wait. Sometimes confused with White or Wheat.
Questions about waite
- What does waite mean?
- Waite means a surname originating as an occupation for a watchman.
- What is waite the archaic spelling of?
- Waite is the archaic spelling of wait.
- What part of speech is waite?
- Waite is a proper noun.
Words near waite in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: waite (page history and authors); Waite (page history and authors); wait (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:
Cite this entry: “waite.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/waite. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
