Wait-a-while

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Synonym of wait-a-bit. South-Africa
  2. 2
    Any of several thorny Australian vines or shrubs which impede passage, especially Acacia cuspidifolia of Western Australia, Smilax australis of eastern Australia and the Northern Territory, and lawyer vine. Australia

    "In the new clearing by the creek where he had felled most of the big stuff, she attacked the landscape with anger, grubbing out the wait-a-while and bush-sword that was still guzzling round the stumps."

Synonyms

All synonyms
wait-a-bit

Example

More examples

"In the new clearing by the creek where he had felled most of the big stuff, she attacked the landscape with anger, grubbing out the wait-a-while and bush-sword that was still guzzling round the stumps."

Etymology

Originally after South African Dutch wacht-en-beetje; compare wait-a-bit.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.