Due vs Wait - What's the difference?
due | wait |
Owed or owing.
Appropriate.
* Gray
Scheduled; expected.
Having reached the expected, scheduled, or natural time.
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=1 Owing; ascribable, as to a cause.
* J. D. Forbes
* {{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers), title=(A Cuckoo in the Nest)
, chapter=2 (used with compass directions) Directly; exactly.
Deserved acknowledgment.
* {{quote-news, author=Daniel Taylor, title=David Silva seizes point for Manchester City as Chelsea are checked, work=(The Guardian) (London), date=31 January 2015
, passage=Chelsea, to give them their due , did start to cut out the defensive lapses as the game went on but they needed to because their opponents were throwing everything at them in those stages and, if anything, seemed encouraged by the message that Mourinho’s Rémy-Cahill switch sent out.}}
(in plural dues ) A membership fee.
That which is owed; debt; that which belongs or may be claimed as a right; whatever custom, law, or morality requires to be done, duty.
* Shakespeare
* Tennyson
Right; just title or claim.
* Milton
To delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by "wait for".)
* Dryden
* 1992 , (Hilary Mantel), A Place of Greater Safety , Harper Perennial 2007, p. 30:
To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.
* (John Milton)
* (John Dryden)
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4
, passage=No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise his man would be there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I would kindly wait .}}
(US) To wait tables; to serve customers in a restaurant or other eating establishment.
(obsolete) To attend on; to accompany; especially, to attend with ceremony or respect.
* Dryden
* Rowe
(obsolete) To attend as a consequence; to follow upon; to accompany.
(obsolete) To defer or postpone (a meal).
A delay.
An ambush.
* Milton
(obsolete) One who watches; a watchman.
(in the plural, obsolete, UK) Hautboys, or oboes, played by town musicians.
(in the plural, archaic, UK) Musicians who sing or play at night or in the early morning, especially at Christmas time; serenaders; musical watchmen. [formerly waites, wayghtes.]
* (rfdate)
* (rfdate)
As adjectives the difference between due and wait
is that due is owed or owing while wait is far.As adverbs the difference between due and wait
is that due is (used with compass directions) directly; exactly while wait is far.As a noun due
is deserved acknowledgment.due
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- With dirges due , in sad array, / Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.
citation, passage=The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.}}
- This effect is due to the attraction of the sun.
citation, passage=Mother
Synonyms
* (owed or owing) needed, owing, to be made, required * (appropriate) * expected, forecast * (having reached the scheduled or natural time) expectedDerived terms
* driving without due care and attention * due date * due to * in due time * taxes due * with all due respectAdverb
(en adverb)- The river runs due north for about a mile.
Noun
(en noun)- Give him his due — he is a good actor.
citation
- He will give the devil his due .
- Yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil.
- The key of this infernal pit by due I keep.
Derived terms
* give someone his due * give the devil his dueStatistics
*External links
* * *Anagrams
* ----wait
English
Alternative forms
* (l)Verb
(en verb)- Awed with these words, in camps they still abide, / And wait with longing looks their promised guide.
- The Court had assembled, to wait events, in the huge antechamber known as the Œil de Boeuf.
- They also serve who only stand and wait .
- Haste, my dear father; 'tis no time to wait .
- He chose a thousand horse, the flower of all / His warlike troops, to wait the funeral.
- Remorse and heaviness of heart shall wait thee, / And everlasting anguish be thy portion.
- to wait dinner
Usage notes
* In sense 1, this is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (delay until event) hold one's breathDerived terms
* can't wait * wait staff * wait state * wait for * wait on * wait tables * waiter * waiting room * waitperson * waitress * waitronNoun
(en noun)- I had a very long wait at the airport security check.
- They laid in wait for the patrol.
- an enemy in wait
- (Halliwell)
- Hark! are the waits abroad?
- The sound of the waits , rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mild watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony.