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Synonyms

wait out

Idioms  

  1. Delay until the end of something, as in They waited out the war in Paris. This expression comes from baseball, where it alludes to the batter refraining from swinging at pitches in the hope of being walked (getting to first base on balls). It was first recorded in 1909 and was transferred to other activities by the 1930s.

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.

Roi Elba came to the shelter with his dog Gaia to wait out a missile salvo.

From Barron's

“We would prefer to wait out the near-term negatives.”

From Barron's

“We would prefer to wait out the near-term negatives.”

From Barron's

As he came by me, I grabbed his collar and said, “Hold on, boy! You can’t go in there. You’ll have to wait out here. We won’t be in there very long—I hope.”

From Literature

They migrate thousands of kilometres to find stable sea ice during Antarctic summer to wait out what is called a "catastrophic moult" every year.

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.