Verb

(lb) To try to find, to look for, to search.

:

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.

(label) To inquire for; to ask for; to solicit; to beseech.

:

*Bible, (w) xi. 16

*:Others, tempting him, sought of him a sign.

*1960 , (Lobsang Rampa), :

*:“My, my! It is indeed a long way yet, look you!” said the pleasant woman of whom I sought directions.

(lb) To try to acquire or gain; to strive after; to aim at.

:

*1880 , , :

*:But persecution sought the lives of men of this character.

*1886 , Constantine Popoff, translation of (Leo Tolstoy)'s :

*:I can no longer seek fame or glory, nor can I help trying to get rid of my riches, which separate me from my fellow-creatures.

*

*:Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.

To go, move, travel (in a given direction).

:

*, Bk.V:

*:Ryght so he sought towarde Sandewyche where he founde before hym many galyard knyghtes

(lb) To try to reach or come to; to go to; to resort to.

*:

*:Seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

*1726 (tr.), (Alexander Pope), ''(Homer)'s (Odyssey), Book II, line 33

*:Since great Ulysses sought the Phrygian plains

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 (Now generally superseded by "wait for".)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