while

/ʍaɪl//wæl/

while noun: an uncertain duration of time, a period of time. Also the alternative spelling or misspelling of wile.

Noun

while (plural (archaic or informal) whiles)

An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
- He lectured for quite a long while.
- It’s a long while since anyone lived there, so it’s a ruin now.
Synonyms:

spell, space, throw
1. An uncertain long period of time
2. (Philippines) An uncertain short moment.

Conjunction

while

During the same time that.
- He was sleeping while I was singing.
- Driving while intoxicated is against the law.
Synonyms:

whilst
Although.
- This case, while interesting, is a bit frustrating.
- While I would love to help, I am very busy at the moment.
Synonyms:

as much as
(Northern England, Scotland) Until.
- I'll wait while you've finished painting.
- To dark is still used in Swaledale (Yorkshire) in the sense of to lie hid, as, 'Te rattens [rats] mun ha bin darkin whel nu [till now]; we hannot heerd tem tis last fortnith'.1873, Richard Morris, Walter William Skeat, “Glossarial Index”, in Specimens of Early English, volumes II: From Robert of Gloucester to Gower, A.D. 1298—A.D. 1393, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 490
Synonyms:

till
As long as.
- While you're at school you may live at home.
- While there's quiet I can sleep.
Synonyms:

provided that, providing, so long as

Preposition

while

(Northern England, Scotland) Until.
- I may be conveyed into your chamber; I'll lie under your bed while midnight.c. 1613, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, “Wit at Several Weapons. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC...

Verb

while (third-person singular simple present whiles, present participle whiling, simple past and past participle whiled)

(in-compounds, transitive, see also while away) To pass (time) idly.
- I whiled away the hours whilst waiting for him to arrive
- Some were whiling the time by admiring the figures on the cloth of tissue.1839, Robert Folkestone Williams, The Youth of Shakespeare, page 184
Synonyms:

idle, laze, lounge
(transitive) To occupy or entertain (someone) in order to let time pass.
- They whiled them with such answere as suted to their purposes, and long adoe was made in weaving and unweaving Penelopes web, till the Spanish Armada was upon the Coast, and the very Ordnance proclaimed in their eares a surcease from further illusions.1588, Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus or, Purchas his Pilgrimes
- He sat her on the corner of the carpenter's bench, and parried or diverted her questions about her father, and the desirability of wakening him by handing her the long curled shavings; and when these palled, he whiled her on by the impossible task of teaching him her version of the 'Three Golden...1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 130
(archaic, intransitive) To elapse, to pass.
- The tedious hours whiled slowly on, 'till the succeeding afternoon, when the expected carriage made its appearance much sooner than they had promised themselves.1764, Mrs. Gunning (Susannah), Family Pictures, a Novel. Containing Curious and Interesting Memoirs of Several Persons of Fashion in W-----re, page 115
- Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened; and was not: / And it was said, 'A man intractable / And curst is gone.'1901, Thomas Hardy, “A Man”, in Poems of the Past and the Present

Proper noun capitalized: While

While

A surname.

Also used as

while is also the alternative spelling or misspelling of wile.

while meaning in Arabic, Malay, Indonesian and Persian

while in Arabic

uncertain duration of time, a period of time: مُدَّة mudda, فَتْرَة fatra
during the same time that: فِي حِين fī ḥīn, بَيْنَمَا baynamā

while in Malay

during the same time that: sambil, semasa, sementara

while in Indonesian

during the same time that: sementara, seraya

while in Persian

during the same time that: هنگامی که hangâmi ke, مادامی که mâdâmê ke

More languagesFewer languages

while in Thai: ขณะที่, ในขณะที่ nai-kà-nà-tîi
while in Vietnamese: trong khi, trong lúc

Examples of while in a sentence

I lived in Ávila for two lustra while I was a child.
Do the good that's nearest Though it's dull at whiles.1857, Charles Kingsley, [Letters and Memories]:
There are whiles […] when ye are altogether too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me.1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 22, in Kidnapped, page 158:
Things were pretty dark for a while — several whiles, actually.2017, Anne Thériault, “The Monster Book of Questions and Answers”, in Kelly Jensen, editor, Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World...
While the powwow was going on the big woman came back again.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

All 40 example sentences with while

Synonyms of while

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

since
until

All synonyms and antonyms of while

Forms of while

Noun
plural (informal, archaic)	whiles
Verb
third-person singular present	whiles
present participle	whiling
past participle	whiled
past	whiled

Origin of while

From Middle English whyle, from Old English hwīl, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīlu, from Proto-Germanic *hwīlō (compare Dutch wijl, Low German Wiel, German Weile, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hvile (“rest”), Norwegian Nynorsk kvila (“rest”), Swedish vila (“rest”), Faroese and Icelandic hvíla (“rest”)) from Proto-Indo-European *kʷyeh₁- (“to rest”). Cognate with Albanian sillë (“breakfast”), Latin tranquillus, Sanskrit चिर (cirá), Persian شاد (šâd).

Words formed from while

Phrases with while

19 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with while

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about while

What does while mean?: While means an uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
What is while in Arabic?: While in Arabic is مُدَّة (mudda), فَتْرَة (fatra), فِي حِين (fī ḥīn). See While meaning in Arabic.
How do you use while in a sentence?: I lived in Ávila for two lustra while I was a child.
What part of speech is while?: While can be a noun, a conjunction, a preposition or a verb.
How do you pronounce while?: While is pronounced /ʍaɪl/.

Words near while in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: while (page history and authors); While (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: 2026-09-02

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

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