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35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL3 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Wait”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
WaitEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
English surname, variant of Waite.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗waitEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
From Middle English waiten, from Anglo-Norman waiter, waitier (compare French guetter from Old French gaitier, guaitier), from Frankish *wahtwēn (“to watch, guard”), derivative of Frankish *wahtu (“guard, watch”), from Proto-Germanic *wahtwō (“guard, watch”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- (“to be fresh, cheerful, awake”). Cognate with Old High German wahtēn (“to watch, guard”), German Low German wachten (“to wait”), Dutch wachten (“to wait, expect”), French guetter (“to watch out for”), Saterland Frisian wachtje (“to wait”), West Frisian wachtsje (“to wait”), North Frisian wachtjen (“to stand, stay put”). More at watch. In some senses, merged or influenced by Middle English waiten, weiten (“to do good to, lie in wait for, to contrive good or harm on, catch, snare”), from Old Norse veita (“to give help to, assist, grant, cause to happen”), from Proto-Germanic *waitijaną (“to show, guide, advise, direct”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see, know”). Largely overtook native Middle English biden, from Old English bīdan, source of bide.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗waitEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Calque of Japanese 待ち.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
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Mayhew–Skeat (1888)
1888; pinned HTML transcription updated October 28, 2024011
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RANK 181GRADE A-ranked reveal
The king is not securely dead.
The familiar “shāh māt = the king died” translation matches Arabic morphology, but the better-supported historical analysis treats māt as a Persian loan meaning helpless, broken, or at a loss.
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