Waited vs Wafted - What's the difference?
waited | wafted |
(wait)
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 (Now generally superseded by "wait for".)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)
(waft)
(ergative) To (cause to) float easily or gently through the air.
* A breeze came in through the open window and wafted her sensuous perfume into my eager nostrils.
* 1922 , (James Joyce), Chapter 13
* 1914 , Hugh G. Evelyn-White’s translation of Hymn to Aphrodite from the .[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138%3Ahymn%3D6]
To be moved, or to pass, on a buoyant medium; to float.
* Dryden
To give notice to by waving something; to wave the hand to; to beckon.
* Shakespeare
A light breeze.
Something (a scent or odor), such as a perfume, that is carried through the air.
* 1908 ,
* 2010 September, "The SLM'' Calendar", , ISSN 1090-5723, volume 16, issue 9, page 170:
(nautical) A flag, (also called a waif or wheft), used to indicate wind direction or, with a knot tied in the center, as a signal.
As verbs the difference between waited and wafted
is that waited is past tense of wait while wafted is past tense of waft.waited
English
Verb
(head)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
*wafted
English
Verb
(head)waft
English
Verb
(en verb)- Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of original sin…
- There the moist breath of the western wind wafted her over the waves of the loud-moaning sea in soft foam, and there the gold-filleted Hours welcomed her joyously.
- And now the shouts waft near the citadel.
- But soft: who wafts us yonder?
Noun
(en noun)- Meanwhile, the wafts from his old home pleaded, whispered, conjured, and finally claimed him imperiously.
- Patrol Magazine says of this Oxford, Miss., band: "Guitars are responsible for every noise in Colour Revolt's mix—not a single note of piano, waft of synthesizer, or evidence of electronic tampering are to be found."
