Wait vs Pend - What's the difference?
wait | pend |
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 (Now generally superseded by "wait for".)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)
(obsolete) To hang down.
(obsolete, Scotland) To arch over (something); to vault.
To hang; to depend.
* I. Taylor
(Scotland) An archway; especially, a vaulted passageway leading through a tenement-style building from the main street, giving access to the rear of the building or an internal courtyard.
To consider pending; to delay or postpone (something).
*1982 , (Lawrence Durrell), Constance'', Faber & Faber 2004 (''Avignon Quintet ), p. 817:
*:The latest list of detainees would be pended and they would be allowed to return to their homes on a temporary basis.
(India) oil cake
----
As an adjective wait
is far.As an adverb wait
is far.As a verb pend is
(obsolete) to hang down or pend can be (obsolete|transitive) to pen; to confine or pend can be to consider pending; to delay or postpone (something).As a noun pend is
(scotland) an archway; especially, a vaulted passageway leading through a tenement-style building from the main street, giving access to the rear of the building or an internal courtyard or pend can be (india) oil cake.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.
Statistics
*pend
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- pending upon certain powerful motions