wait on
Britishverb
-
to serve at the table of
-
to act as an attendant or servant to
-
archaic to visit
interjection
-
Also, wait upon . Serve, minister to, especially for personal needs or in a store or restaurant. For example, Guests at the Inn should not expect to be waited on—they can make their own beds and get their own breakfast . [Early 1500s]
-
Make a formal call on, as in They waited on the ambassador . [c. 1500]
-
Also, wait upon . Await, remain in readiness for, as in We're waiting on their decision to close the school . This usage, a synonym of wait for , dates from the late 1600s but in the mid-1800s began to be criticized by many authorities. However, by the late 1900s it had come into increasingly wider use and is again largely accepted.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For several seconds, a silence settled over the people waiting on the depot platform.
From Literature
That could mean companies that were waiting on the sidelines and absorbing the tariff hit will now move toward passing on those costs.
From Barron's
More than a month later, single-stair advocates are still waiting on that report — though a draft version obtained by CalMatters hints that the office may be considering a modest change to the state building code.
From Los Angeles Times
And I have a teenager to get ready for school that we’re always all waiting on.
From Los Angeles Times
The added benefit of arriving into these positions, whether wide or central, rather than waiting on the touchline for the ball, helped him get on the ball with separation from his marker more often too.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
