Wait

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“
Wait--(not long It cometh like the night, and quickly)--Wait Wait till, like me, your hopes are blighted[178] till Sorrow and Shame are handmaids of your cabin Famine and Poverty your guests at table Despair your bed-fellow--then rise, but not From sleep, and judge!

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Definitions (10)

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  1. l. A watchman; a guard; also, a spy. Prompt. Parv., p. 513. And wysly bes ware [beware] waytys to the towne, On yche half forto hede, that no harme fall. Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), l. 6265.
  2. One of a body of musicians, especially in the seventeenth century in England. Originally the waits seem to have been watchmen who sounded horns, or in some other noisy way announced their being on watch. Bands of musicians seem to have borne the name generally at a later time, and it is still preserved in England, as applied to persons who sing out of doors at Christmas time, and seek gratuities from house to house. A wayte, that nightelye from Mychelmas to Shreve Thorsdaye pipethe the watche withen this courte fower tymes. … Also this yeoman waight, at the makinge of Knyghtes of the Bath, for his attendance upon them by nyghte time, in watchinge in the chappelle, hath he to his fee all the watchinge clothing that the knyght shall wear upon him. Rymer, quoted in Chambers's Book of Days, II. 743. We will have the city waites down with us, and a noise of trumpets. Shirley, Witty Fair One, iv. 2. There is scarce a young man of any fashion who does not make love with the town music. The waits often help him through his courtship; and my friend Banister has told me he was proffered five hundred pounds by a young fellow to play but one winter under the window of a lady. Tailer, No. 222. A strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the window. I listened, and found it proceeded from a band, which I concluded to be the waits from some neighboring village. Irving, Sketch-Book, p. 253.
  3. An old variety of hautboy or shawm: so called because much used by the waits. Grete lordys were at the assent, Waytys blewe, to mete they wente. MS. Cantab, Ff. ii. 38, f. 69. (Halliawell.) The waits or hoboys. Butler, Principles of Musick (1636), quoted in [Chambers's Book of Days, II. 743.
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Examples (50)

  • Each night he read to the family what he had written that day, and Susy, who was easily moved, would say, "Wait--wait till I get my handkerchief," and one night when the last pages had been written and read, and the fearful scene at Rouen had been depicted, Susy wrote in her diary, "To-night Joan of Arc was burned at the stake!" —  The Boys' Life of Mark Twain
  • He had been a military cop for thirteen years, and Hurry Up and Wait was the real MP motto. —  One Shot by Lee Child
  • No, we need to be able to review the routines harmlessly, just as Fewsmith does -- Wait a minute! —  F ;SF; - vol 104 issue 04 - April 2003
  • Larkin sat suddenly, and the nervous guard cocked his rifle and half pressed the trigger as Mac shouted in Malay, "Wait, he's just sitting All of you sit!" —  Clavell - King Rat
  • "Wait," said the mouths that were still capable of forming words. —  Tim Powers - The Stress of Her Regard
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Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Formerly also, erroneously, waight; from Middle English waite, wayte, a watchman, spy, from Old French waite, gaite, a guard, sentinel, watchman, spy, later, guet, watch, ward, heed, also the watch or company appointed to watch (= Provencal gach, gayt), from Old High German wahta, Middle High German wahte, German wacht, a watchman; cf. Gothic (Moesogothic) wahtwo, a watch, from Anglo-Saxon wacan = Gothic (Moesogothic) wakan, etc., wake, watch: see wake, watch. In senses 4, 5, 6, etc., the noun is from the verb.
 

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