Word.ws English Dictionary

wayte

wayte is the obsolete spelling of wait.

Meaning of wait

Noun

wait (plural waits)

  1. A delay.
    • I had a very long wait at the airport security check.
  2. An ambush.
    • They lay in wait for the patrol.
  3. (obsolete) One who watches; a watchman.
  4. (UK, in plural, obsolete) Hautboys, or oboes, played by town musicians.
    • […]as he returned home to his owne house, the waits should sound the hautboies all the way1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “[Book XVII]”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC
  5. (UK, in plural) Musicians who sing or play at night or in the early morning, especially at Christmas time; serenaders; musical watchmen.
    • Hark! are the waits abroad?1609–1612, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Captaine”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act II, scene ii

See all 15 meanings of wait

Proper noun capitalized: Wayte

Wayte

  1. A surname.

Questions about wayte

What does wayte mean?
Wayte means a surname.
What is wayte the obsolete spelling of?
Wayte is the obsolete spelling of wait.
What part of speech is wayte?
Wayte is a proper noun.

Words near wayte in the dictionary

  1. waystage
  2. waystages
  3. waystation
  4. waystations
  5. Wayt
  6. wayte
  7. waythorn
  8. Wayts
  9. wayupthere
  10. Wayuu
  11. wayvode

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wayte (page history and authors); Wayte (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.

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