Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A period of time: stay for a while; sang all the while. See Usage Note at awhile.
- n. The time, effort, or trouble taken in doing something: The project wasn't worth my while.
- conj. As long as; during the time that: It was lovely while it lasted.
- conj. At the same time that; although: While the grandparents love the children, they are strict with them.
- conj. Whereas; and: The soles are leather, while the uppers are canvas.
- v. To spend (time) idly or pleasantly: while the hours away.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A time; a space of time; especially, a short space of time during which something happens or is to happen or be done.
- n. Time spent upon anything; expenditure of time, and hence of pains or labor; trouble: as, to do it is not worth one's while.
- During or in the time that; as long as.
- At the same time that: often used adversatively.
- Till; until.
- Synonyms While, Though. While implies less of contrast in the parallel than though, sometimes, indeed, implying no contrast at all. Thus we say, “While I admire his bravery, I esteem his moderation;” but “though I admire his courage, I detest his cruelty.”
- At times; sometimes; now and then: used in correlation as while … while. Compare whiles, adv.
- To cause to pass; spend; consume; kill: said of time: usually followed by away.
- To occupy the time of; busy; detain.
- To pass; elapse, as time.
Wiktionary
- n. A certain duration of time, a period of time.
- conj. During the same time that.
- conj. although
- conj. Northern England, Scotland until
- v. transitive To pass (time) idly.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Space of time, or continued duration, esp. when short; a time.
- n. obsolete That which requires time; labor; pains.
- v. To cause to pass away pleasantly or without irksomeness or disgust; to spend or pass; -- usually followed by
away . - v. rare To loiter.
- conj. During the time that; as long as; whilst; at the same time that.
- conj. Hence, under which circumstances; in which case; though; whereas.
- prep. Obs. or Prov. Eng. & Scot. Until; till.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a period of indeterminate length (usually short) marked by some action or condition
Etymologies
- From Old English hwīl, from Proto-Germanic *hwīlō. Cognate with Low German wil. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English hwīl; see kweiə- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Gibreel, with the Imam riding him like a carpet, swoops lower, and in the steaming night it looks as if the streets are alive, they seem to be writhing, like snakes; while in front of the palace of the Empress's defeat a new hill seems to be growing, _while we watch, baba, what's going on here?”
“Alexander, dum inter prīmōrēs pugnat, sagittā ictus est, _Alexander, while he was fighting in the van, was struck by an arrow_; dum haec geruntur, in fīnēs Venellōrum pervēnit, _while these things were being done, he arrived in the territory of the Venelli_.”
“I do not know -- but someday you and all in the world will see it, when the Earth people are kind to each other -- not once in a while, but every day -- _all the while_ --”
“Even while we write, and for years back, a charge lies in the department of the Minister of Finance, against the present Premier of the Dominion, accusing that unscrupulous individual of conspiring with a whisky dealer, _while he himself was First Minister of the Crown_, to defraud the revenue -- a charge made by the present Assistant Commissioner of Customs and”
Ridgeway An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada
“Thou hast immanacled while Heaven sees good," he explains that "_while_ here has the sense of _so long as_.”
“I. i.33 (231,5) [be better employ'd, and be nought a while] Warburton explained [ "be nought a while" as "a mischief on you"] If _be nought a while_ has the signification here given it, the reading may certainly stand; but till I learned its meaning from this note, I read,”
“But I swear that she shall never marry him while I live, "he ended in a kind of shout and the domed and painted ceiling echoed back his words --" _while I live_ "after which the room was silent, save for the heavy thumping of his heart.”
“The court, however, sentenced Tuncel to 10 1/2 years in prison for a separate crime, his role in a bombing a McDonald's restaurant in 2004 in Black Sea port city of Trabzon and ordered his release from prison since he already completed his term while awaiting a verdict.”
“But when given the opportunity to use the term while sharing the stage with Romney during a debate Monday night in New Hampshire, he balked.”
“Harris, who discovered the label while pregnant with her second child, set out to create jeans that would fit her busy lifestyle as a mother of two.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘while’.
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Tati's list
comfortable
comfortable, avocado, avoid, beautiful, beer, bear, brief, breath, bug, bias, burn, case and 97 more...
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EN - Glasgow stop list
Words to be replaced by a paragraph mark if you are after terms and MWEs.
about, above, across, after, afterwards, again, against, all, almost, alone, along, already and 291 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Time
clock, forever, never, ever, ago, when, then, now, past, present, future, timeline and 119 more...
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In contrast
however, still, nevertheless, on the other hand, on the contrary, even so, notwithstanding, for all that, in contrast, alternatively, at the same time, though this may be and 26 more...
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Programming
class, function, method, instance, value, variable, boolean, if, else, while, for, elseif and 95 more...
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Tunie: Word Disassociation
(I'm fairly sure that I'm subverting the whole concept of the Tunie by listing this song. Subversion! Yes! HA HA HA HA! Mine is an evil laugh!!!)
Word Disassociation
antidisestablishm..., quickly, ruby, bionic, about, crouch, a cappella, imposter, flames, distraction, murderous, over and 181 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2041 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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Theme Prompts
There's a fiction meme (mostly on Livejournal) where writers use words as a prompt for a short story snippet. I've been collecting the words that show up on these lists as prompts for creative writ...
white, black, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet, queen, king, prince and 407 more...
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eloise's Words
embrace, perfect, imagine, dance, water, color, echo, hollow, sorrow, beauty, impossible, violet and 438 more...
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Silent "H"
spaghetti, aghast, ghoul, gherkin, ghetto, hour, whether, whisk, whistle, rhythm, rhyme, ghost and 16 more...
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Cohesion
even if, as though, when, although, because, as long as, as, until, before, than, whenever, while and 7 more...
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TN5 Lesson 52
discount store, Kmart, cart, shopping cart, pans, frying pan, pot, cookware, set, piece, 7-piece set, cook and 14 more...
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Ruby Reserved Words
alias, and, begin, break, case, class, def, defined?, do, else, elsif, end and 26 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for while.
mollusque Whiling away, huh? Nov 12, 2007
oroboros Although. Nov 12, 2007