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PlainSpell

wait

/weɪt/verb, noun, interjection

wait is spelled W-A-I-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 224 times per million words in written English, the 447th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, wait means “To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in wait?

Letters4: W-A-I-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing224 times per million words; the 447th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is wait?

Wait appears 224 times per million words in written English, the 447th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce wait?

  • /weɪt/
  • US /weɪt/
  • US [weɪ̯ʔt]

Wait has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-wait.ogg, En-uk-to_wait.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with wait

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

wait vs weight0 B

Sounds like: weight (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with wait?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as wait from its last stressed vowel (/eɪt/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of wait

  • waits present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • waiting participle, present
  • waited participle, past, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • waight

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does wait mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.

    Wait here until your car arrives.

  2. 2

    USTo wait tables; to serve customers in a restaurant or other eating establishment.

    She used to wait in this joint.

  3. 3

    archaicTo delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by “wait for”.)

    to wait one’s turn

  4. 4

    obsoleteTo attend on; to accompany; especially, to attend with ceremony or respect.

  5. 5

    obsoleteTo attend as a consequence; to follow upon; to accompany.

  6. 6

    colloquialobsoleteTo defer or postpone (especially a meal).

  7. 7

    obsoleteTo watch with malicious intent; to lie in wait

  8. 8

    To remain faithful to one’s partner or betrothed during a prolonged period of absence.

noun

  1. 1

    A delay.

    I had a very long wait at the airport security check.

  2. 2

    An ambush.

    They lay in wait for the patrol.

  3. 3

    Ellipsis of wait state.

  4. 4

    obsoleteOne who watches; a watchman.

  5. 5

    UKobsoleteHautboys, or oboes, played by town musicians.

  6. 6

    UKMusicians who sing or play at night or in the early morning, especially at Christmas time; serenaders; musical watchmen.

interjection

  1. 1

    informalTells the other speaker to stop talking, typing etc. for a moment, often to allow clarification.

    - And so I went upstairs– - Wait. Your house has two floors?

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Wait in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchattendre, patienter (delay until some event), servir, faire le service (to serve customers), attente (a delay)
Germanwarten (delay until some event), bedienen (to serve customers), Warten (a delay)
Portugueseesperar, aguardar (delay until some event), servir (to serve customers), espera (a delay)
Spanishesperar, aguardar, bancar, aguantar (delay until some event), servir, ser camarero (to serve customers)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does wait come from?

From Middle English waiten, from Anglo-Norman waiter, waitier (compare French guetter from Old French gaitier, guaitier), from Frankish *wahtwēn (“to watch, guard”), derivative of Frankish *wahtu (“guard, watch”), from Proto-Germanic *wahtwō (“guard, watch”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- (“to be fresh, cheerful, awake”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after wait