waiting
[ˈweɪ̯ɾɪŋ]noun, verb
waiting is spelled W-A-I-T-I-N-G. The wrong spelling people search most is wating: about 40 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 108 of all searches for the word. Waiting is a noun meaning “The act of staying or remaining in expectation”. The plural of waiting is waitings.
How many letters and syllables are in waiting?
| Letters | 7: W-A-I-T-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 115 times per million words; the 932nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, wating, about 40 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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).
How do you spell waiting?
Waiting is spelled W-A-I-T-I-N-G. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 72 of the searches for waiting in either form.
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). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is waiting?
Waiting appears 115 times per million words in written English, the 932nd 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 waiting?
- /ˈweɪtɪŋ/
- US [ˈweɪ̯ɾɪŋ]
Waiting has 2 syllables (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-waiting.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of waiting
- waitings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does waiting mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
obsoleteWatching, observation; keeping watch, guarding.
- 2
The act of staying or remaining in expectation.
Waiting for any news in a waiting room. (gerund)
- 3
Attendance, service.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of wait
Your guest has been waiting for you. (progressive) They hurried into the waiting car. (participle used as adjective)
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Waiting in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the act of staying or remaining in expectation:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | attente |
| German | Warten |
| Spanish | aguardamiento |
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 waiting come from?
From Middle English waitynge, waytynge, equivalent to wait + -ing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).