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waitMain Entry: 1wait Pronunciation: \ˈwāt\ Function: verb Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French waiter, guaiter to watch over, await, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German wahta watch, Old English wæccan to watch — more at wake Date: 14th century transitive verb 1 : to stay in place in expectation of : await <waited the result of the advertisement — W. M. Thackeray> <wait your turn> — wait on also wait upon 1 a : to attend as a servant b : to supply the wants of : serve — wait up : to delay going to bed : stay up usage American dialectologists have evidence showing wait on (sense 3) to be more a Southern than a Northern form in speech. Handbook writers universally denigrate wait on and prescribe wait for in writing. Our evidence from printed sources does not show a regional preference; it does show that the handbooks' advice is not based on current usage <settlement of the big problems still waited on Russia — Time> <I couldn't make out…whether Harper was waiting on me for approval — E. B. White> <the staggering bill that waited on them at the white commissary downtown — Maya Angelou>. One reason for the continuing use of wait on may lie in its being able to suggest protracted or irritating waits better than wait for <for two days I've been waiting on weather — Charles A. Lindbergh> <the boredom of black Africans sitting there, waiting on the whims of a colonial bureaucracy — Vincent Canby> <doesn't care to sit around waiting on a House that's virtually paralyzed — Glenn A. Briere>. Wait on is less common than wait for, but if it seems natural, there is no reason to avoid it.
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