Word.ws English Dictionary

whiles

/(h)waɪlz/

whiles adverb: sometimes; at times. Also the plural of while.

Adverb

whiles (not comparable)

  1. (Scotland, archaic) sometimes; at times
    • Man, I've diverted myself whiles with the science of the stars, and can make a shape at calculating a nativity.1927, John Buchan, Witch Wood, published 1988, page 14
  2. (Scotland, archaic) meanwhile
    • the good knight whiles humming to himself the lay of some majored troubadour1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co....

Conjunction

whiles

  1. (archaic, dialectal) while, whilst
    • Portia: […]Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • for it so falls out,
      That what we have we prize not to the worth
      Whiles we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost,
      Why, then we rack the value, then we find
      The virtue that possession would not show us
      Whiles it was ours.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Also used as

whiles is also the plural of while.

whiles is also the third-person singular simple present indicative of while.

Origin of whiles

From while (noun) + -s (adverbial suffix); compare whilst.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Phrases with whiles

Words that rhyme with whiles

Questions about whiles

What does whiles mean?
Whiles means sometimes; at times.
What part of speech is whiles?
Whiles can be an adverb or a conjunction.
How do you pronounce whiles?
Whiles is pronounced /(h)waɪlz/.

Words near whiles in the dictionary

  1. whileen
  2. whileens
  3. whilemeal
  4. whilend
  5. whilere
  6. whiles
  7. whiles away
  8. whilest
  9. whilever
  10. whiling
  11. whiling away

Source and license

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