/ʍaɪl/, /waɪl/, /wæl/
OriginFrom Middle English whyle, from Old English hwīl, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīlu, from Proto-Germanic *hwīlō (compare Dutch wijl, Low German Wiel, German Weile, Danish hvile (“rest”), Norwegian Bokmål hvile (“rest”)), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷyeh₁- (“to rest”). Cognate with Albanian sillë (“breakfast”), Latin tranquillus, Sanskrit चिर (cirá), Persian شاد (šâd).
- An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
“He lectured for quite a long while.”
“It’s a long while since anyone lived there, so it’s a ruin now.”
“Do the good that's nearest Though it's dull at whiles.”
- An uncertain long period of time
- Philippinesan uncertain short moment
- During the same time that.
“He was sleeping while I was singing.”
“Driving while intoxicated is against the law.”
“I lived in Ávila for two lustra while I was a child.”
- Although.
“This case, while interesting, is a bit frustrating.”
“While I would love to help, I am very busy at the moment.”
“While Britain’s recession has been deep and unforgiving, in London it has been relatively shallow.”
- Northern-England, ScotlandUntil.
“I'll wait while you've finished painting.”
“To dark is still used in Swaledale (Yorkshire) in the sense of to lie hid, as, 'Te rattens [rats] mun ha bin darkin whel nu [till now]; we hannot heerd tem tis last fortnith'.”
- As long as.
“While you're at school you may live at home.”
“While there's quiet I can sleep.”
“Use your memory; you will sensibly experience a gradual improvement, while you take care not to load it to excess.”
- Northern-England, ScotlandUntil.
“I may be conveyed into your chamber; I'll lie under your bed while midnight.”
- in-compounds, transitiveTo pass (time) idly.
“I whiled away the hours whilst waiting for him to arrive”
“Some were whiling the time by admiring the figures on the cloth of tissue.”
“Here in seclusion, as a widow may, / The lovely lady whiled the hours away, […]”
- transitiveTo occupy or entertain (someone) in order to let time pass.
“They whiled them with such answere as suted to their purposes, and long adoe was made in weaving and unweaving Penelopes web, till the Spanish Armada was upon the Coast, and the very Ordnance proclaim”
“He sat her on the corner of the carpenter's bench, and parried or diverted her questions about her father, and the desirability of wakening him by handing her the long curled shavings; and when these ”
“In other worlds I whiled me now Through many a dark night long.”
- archaic, intransitiveTo elapse, to pass.
“The tedious hours whiled slowly on, 'till the succeeding afternoon, when the expected carriage made its appearance much sooner than they had promised themselves.”
“Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened; and was not: / And it was said, 'A man intractable / And curst is gone.'”
- alt-of, alternative, misspellingAlternative spelling or misspelling of wile.
“There it lies before me sparkling in the sun, whiling me as it often does from my pen or book to gaze upon its loveliness.”
“Perhaps the coziness of his seat, and the absence of the sun's rays from the side of the house where he was seated, had some agency in whiling him into a delicious sleep;”
“Upon the shelf before me stands, The Book that lured to distant Lands, That prompt my boyish wish to roam, And whiled me from my childhood's home.”
Formswhiles(archaic, informal, plural) · whiles(present, singular, third-person) · whiling(participle, present) · whiled(participle, past) · whiled(past)