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Surface vs Wait - What's the difference?

surface | wait |

As a verb surface

is .

As an adjective wait is

far.

As an adverb wait is

far.

surface

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,
  • The outside hull of a tangible object.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}
  • (lb) Outward or external appearance.
  • :
  • *(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)
  • *:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.
  • (lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.
  • :(Stocqueler)
  • Synonyms

    * overside * superfice (archaic)

    Derived terms

    * surface mail * surficial

    Verb

  • To provide something with a surface.
  • To apply a surface to something.
  • To rise to the surface.
  • To come out of hiding.
  • For information or facts to become known.
  • To work a mine near the surface.
  • To appear or be found.
  • wait

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To delay movement or action until the arrival or occurrence of; to await. (Now generally superseded by "wait for".)
  • * Dryden
  • Awed with these words, in camps they still abide, / And wait with longing looks their promised guide.
  • * 1992 , (Hilary Mantel), A Place of Greater Safety , Harper Perennial 2007, p. 30:
  • The Court had assembled, to wait events, in the huge antechamber known as the Œil de Boeuf.
  • To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.
  • * (John Milton)
  • They also serve who only stand and wait .
  • * (John Dryden)
  • Haste, my dear father; 'tis no time to wait .
  • *
  • , 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
  • He chose a thousand horse, the flower of all / His warlike troops, to wait the funeral.
  • * Rowe
  • Remorse and heaviness of heart shall wait thee, / And everlasting anguish be thy portion.
  • (obsolete) To attend as a consequence; to follow upon; to accompany.
  • (obsolete) To defer or postpone (a meal).
  • to wait dinner

    Usage notes

    * In sense 1, this is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See

    Synonyms

    * (delay until event) hold one's breath

    Derived terms

    * can't wait * wait staff * wait state * wait for * wait on * wait tables * waiter * waiting room * waitperson * waitress * waitron

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A delay.
  • I had a very long wait at the airport security check.
  • An ambush.
  • They laid in wait for the patrol.
  • * Milton
  • an enemy in wait
  • (obsolete) One who watches; a watchman.
  • (in the plural, obsolete, UK) Hautboys, or oboes, played by town musicians.
  • (Halliwell)
  • (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)
  • Hark! are the waits abroad?
  • * (rfdate)
  • 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.

    Statistics

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