Etimology
From 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).
noun
while (plural (archaic or informal) whiles)
An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
Examples
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.
There are whiles […] when ye are altogether too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me.
Things were pretty dark for a while — several whiles, actually.
Related words
synonyms
spell; see also Thesaurus:uncertain period
antonyms
(antonym(s) of "uncertain long period"): bit
conjunction
while
During the same time that.
Although.
(Northern England, Scotland) Until.
As long as.
(media, public policy) Used to denote a person experiencing racial profiling when performing a seemingly benign activity.
Examples
He was sleeping while I was singing.
Driving while intoxicated is against the law.
While the powwow was going on the big woman came back again. She was consider'ble rumpled and scratched up, but there was fire in her eye.
While De Anza was exploring the Bay of San Francisco, seeking a site for the presidio, the American colonists on the eastern seaboard, three thousand miles away, were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.
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.
I'll wait while you've finished painting.
To dark is still used in Swaledale 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'.
While you're at school you may live at home.
Use your memory; you will sensibly experience a gradual improvement, while you take care not to load it to excess.
He was detained for four hours at the store yesterday. His crime? Shopping while black.
Ms. Syed, along with many of her American Muslim friends and Islamic-rights advocates, is all too familiar with what many refer to as the stigma of traveling while Muslim.
He added that the case took an emotional toll and left him humiliated by the accusations when, in fact, all he had been doing was "gardening while black".
Related words
synonyms
(during the same time that): whilst; see also Thesaurus:while
(although): as much as; see also Thesaurus:even though
(until): till; see also Thesaurus:until
(as long as): provided that, providing, so long as
related terms
while loop
preposition
while
(Northern England, Scotland) Until.
Examples
I may be conveyed into your chamber; I'll lie under your bed while midnight.
verb
while (third-person singular simple present whiles, present participle whiling, simple past and past participle whiled)
(transitive, now only in combination with away; see also while away) To pass (time) idly.
(transitive) To occupy or entertain (someone) in order to let time pass.
(intransitive, archaic) To elapse, to pass.
Alternative spelling or misspelling of wile.
Examples
Synonyms: idle, laze, lounge
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, […]
As if she was just whiling her time with them until his arrival.
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 proclaimed in their eares a surcease from further illusions.
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 palled, he whiled her on by the impossible task of teaching him her version of the 'Three Golden Balls' a blank-verse poem, but rhythmically intoned, which he had taught her.
In other worlds I whiled me now Through many a dark night long.
Like a good father, he whiled him with stories about the past of his nation and discussed in detail the intricacies of his profession, teaching the child secrets of the craft that had been passed from generation to generation.
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.'
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.
“Do not let us go near them," he says in a cajoling, low voice to Bertha, whiling her away into the sun and the flowers;
He whiled him on to speak farther; but the same cloud was still upon Sir Henry Dacre's mind.
Related words
synonyms
(loiter): see also Thesaurus:loiter
related terms
awhile
whilst