Word.ws English Dictionary

waited

UK/ˈweɪt.ɪd//ˈweɪ.tɪd/

waited is the simple past and past participle of wait.

Meaning of wait

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.
    • Wait here until your car arrives.
  2. (US, intransitive, stative) To wait tables; to serve customers in a restaurant or other eating establishment.
    • She used to wait in this joint.
    Synonyms:
    wait on, wait upon, serve
  3. (archaic, transitive) To delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by “wait for”.)
    • to wait one’s turn
  4. (obsolete, transitive) 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
  5. (obsolete) To attend as a consequence; to follow upon; to accompany.
    Synonyms:
    attend, escort, go with
  6. (colloquial, obsolete) 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

See all 15 meanings of wait

Words formed from waited

Phrases with waited

10 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with waited

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about waited

What is waited the simple past and past participle of?
Waited is the simple past and past participle of wait.
How do you pronounce waited?
Waited is pronounced /ˈweɪt.ɪd/ (UK).

Words near waited in the dictionary

  1. Waitara
  2. waitasec
  3. Waitby
  4. Waitchie
  5. waite
  6. waited
  7. waited a minute
  8. waited and saw
  9. waited and seen
  10. waited around
  11. waited for

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: waited (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-waited.ogg.

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