Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of several plants having sharp, often hooked thorns. Also called wait-a-minute.
Wiktionary
- n. any of several small bushes with sharp hooked thorns.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The greenbrier.
- n. Any of various species of hawthorn.
- n. In South Africa, one of numerous acacias and mimosas.
- n. The grapple plant.
- n. The prickly ash.
Etymologies
- Translation of Afrikaans wag-'n-bietjie. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I did neither; I enjoy a good performance as well as the next licentious rascal, and never mind playing wait-a-bit with a coquette who knows her business.”
“We were an odd pair of scallywags to look at, but as South African as a wait-a-bit bush.”
“A jungle of mimosa, ebony, and “wait-a-bit” thorn lies between the Chicova flats and the cultivated plain, on which stand the villages of the chief, Chitora.”
A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries
“The country beyond consisted of large patches of trap-covered tufa, having little soil or vegetation except tufts of grass and wait-a-bit thorns, in the midst of extensive sandy, grass-covered plains.”
“There the vegetation consists of fine grass growing in tufts among low bushes of the “wait-a-bit” thorn”
“The adjacent country is all covered with low, thorny scrub, with grass, and here and there clumps of the “wait-a-bit thorn”, or”
“The horse, on feeling the lion on him, sprang away, and the rider, caught by a wait-a-bit thorn, was brought to the ground and rendered insensible.”
“I took a pair of EFT cards out of my baldric and programmed them with the agreed amounts, flapped a wait-a-bit paw at the two Y'tata, and addressed the man at the table.”
“A. mellifera subsp. detinens derived its common name (wait-a-bit tree) from the pairs of small hooks on the branches.”
“He must have been riding fast, and inadvertently struck against some "wait-a-bit," which rebounded like a bit of twisted elastic, and caught him in such a grip that he was powerless to free himself.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wait-a-bit’.
-
Ponderable Plant Names
List of plant names (common or scientific) that go trippingly off the tongue, are fun to contemplate, expose the wit of the namer, or just plain befuddle.
tongueshape mudmi..., glandular maiden ..., jeweled maiden fern, stately maiden fern, hairy maiden fern, downy maiden fern, widespread maiden..., turkey tangle fog..., yankeeweed, clitoria fragrans, clitoria mariana, tall tumblemustard and 261 more...
-
Hyphen Nation
Terms with multiple hyphens, such as rent-a-crowd. Not intended to be a see-how-many-words-one-can-string-together-with-hyphens-used-adjectively sort of list.
much-talked-of, vis-à-vis, tête-à-tête, rope-a-dope, will-o'-the-wisp, dick-a-tuesday, will-in-the-wisp, jack-o'-lantern, jack-with-a-lantern, ear-to-ear, whack-a-mole, no-man's-land and 205 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wait-a-bit.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.