(n.) Goods found of which the owner is not known; originally, such goods as a pursued thief threw away to prevent being apprehended, which belonged to the king unless the owner made pursuit of the felon, took him, and brought him to justice.
(n.) Hence, anything found, or without an owner; that which comes along, as it were, by chance.
(n.) A wanderer; a castaway; a stray; a homeless child.
Example Sentences:
(1) Fringe right parties do tend to collect a number of waifs and strays.
(2) The fiercest denunciation came from the minister without portfolio, Kenneth Clarke, who characterised Ukip candidates as waifs and strays, feeding on prejudice about immigration.
(3) After a hard day at the Vatican, the pontiff likes little better than watching films in which a resolute priest battles the Nazis and a circus strongman takes a waif as his slave.
(4) "The fringe right parties do tend to collect a number of waifs and strays.
(5) The brochure was promoting a scheme where you take waif kids and kids of the pauper class and the slums before they could be corrupted by the poverty and crime of England and send them to Australia for education and opportunity in schools like Fairbridge, where we would become strong and long-limbed by working the farms,” Hill says.
(6) Waif-like figures, mostly young men from Morocco and Algeria, rushed to grab the polystyrene cups.
(7) It was symptomatic of the first half that Stoke’s wonder waif, Bojan Krkic, harassed Cazorla into coughing up possession on halfway in the 25th minute before out-fighting Per Mertesacker to set up a Stoke attack that culminated in a dangerous corner.
(8) Chapter 39 also forgot about women altogether when it spoke of outlawry, for women were not outlawed they were “waived”, which meant left as a “waif”.
(9) Five minutes in and you realise that this is not a permanent home – simply the Swedish base camp of a huge nomadic family with its roots in the 1960s, whose friends and collaborators connect some of the most unlikely names, from Ornette Coleman to Ari Up from the Slits, from Martina Topley-Bird to waifs and strays such as "that strange young man that Cameron met in the street and let live in our house for a while".
(10) Last week even a waif washing car windscreens at traffic lights was executed.
(11) Dramas set in these times tend either to be full of the sort of tubercular waifs whose lives are so mud-spattered they become slapstick, or cheeky orphan chimney sweeps saying things like “Cor it’ll be nippy by St Modwen’s Day and no mistake, guvnor!” next to a lovely shire horse.
(12) The lines were written only a few days before his death: Through these pale cold days What dark faces burn Out of three thousand years, And their wild eyes yearn, While underneath their brows Like waifs their spirits grope For the pools of Hebron again For Lebanon's summer slope.
(13) Ukip has "fruitcakes, loonies, waifs and strays" in its ranks and among its supporters, Kenneth Clarke has said after a spate of stories questioning the credentials of the party's candidates in this week's local elections.
(14) But it is now also a parliamentary waif without a home or useful purpose.
(15) Waifs were everywhere; the odder-looking the better.
(16) This caustic ensemble comedy is about a neurotic actress (Julianne Moore) haunted by her dead mother, a repellent Bieber-esque teen star (terrific up-and-comer Evan Bird) and a deranged waif (Mia Wasikowska) with a dark past.
(17) When I mention that I live near Tony Benn , and often see him taking an hour to buy a pint of milk because he patiently engages with every passing waif and stray who wants his advice on something or other, Farage's eyes light up.
(18) The teenage waif became a symbol of sanctions-busting, of the weasel ways in which western governments eroded the campaign to isolate Pretoria.
(19) Since the supermodels of the 90s – the likes of Elle Macpherson and Claudia Schiffer – retired their bronzed Amazonian limbs, the favoured look has been vacant and waif-like: an ethereal type, easily made bland and identikit for the catwalk after hair and makeup.
(20) Ukip said that Lynam, the face of television sport during the 1980s, sent the party rewritten lyrics to Send in the Clowns , mocking Conservative critics who lambasted Ukip as a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies, waifs and strays .
Wait
Definition:
(v. i.) To watch; to observe; to take notice.
(v. i.) To stay or rest in expectation; to stop or remain stationary till the arrival of some person or event; to rest in patience; to stay; not to depart.
(v. t.) To stay for; to rest or remain stationary in expectation of; to await; as, to wait orders.
(v. t.) To attend as a consequence; to follow upon; to accompany; to await.
(v. t.) To attend on; to accompany; especially, to attend with ceremony or respect.
(v. t.) To cause to wait; to defer; to postpone; -- said of a meal; as, to wait dinner.
(v. i.) The act of waiting; a delay; a halt.
(v. i.) Ambush.
(v. i.) One who watches; a watchman.
(v. i.) Hautboys, or oboes, played by town musicians; not used in the singular.
(v. i.) Musicians who sing or play at night or in the early morning, especially at Christmas time; serenaders; musical watchmen.
Example Sentences:
(1) I can't wait to see what Christie and her patriarchy-smashing pals do next.
(2) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
(3) I said: ‘Apologies for doing this publicly, but I did try to get a meeting with you, and I couldn’t even get a reply.’ And then I had a massive go at him – about everything really, from poverty to uni fees to NHS waiting times.” She giggles again.
(4) It is possible that the high level of radiolabeled phospholipid found in the plasma membrane arose via the de novo pathway following the cleavage of an acyl group as we have found cytidine diphosphocholine phosphotransferase in the plasma membrane fraction (Wang, P., DeChatelet, L.R., and Waite, M. (1977) Biochim.
(5) Meanwhile Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, waiting anxiously for news of the scale of the Labour advance in his first nationwide electoral test, will urge the electorate not to be duped by the promise of a coalition mark 2, predicting sham concessions by the Conservatives .
(6) There are currently more than 380,000 households on local authority waiting lists in the capital – and the number is growing every day.
(7) If we’re waiting around for the Democratic version to sail through here, or the Republican version to sail through here, all those victims who are waiting for us to do something will wait for days, months, years, forever and we won’t get anything done.” Senator Bill Nelson, whose home state of Florida is still reeling from the Orlando shooting, said he felt morally obligated to return to his constituents with results.
(8) Terry Waite Chair, Benedict Birnberg Deputy chair, Antonio Ferrara CEO The Prisons Video Trust • If I want to build a bridge, I call in a firm of civil engineers who specialise in bridge-building.
(9) As a member of the state Assembly, Walker voted for a bill known as the Woman’s Right to Know Act, which required physicians to provide women with full information prior to an abortion and established a 24-hour waiting period in the hope that some women might change their mind about undergoing the procedure.
(10) Strict precautions are necessary to prevent the catastrophic events resulting from inadvertent gentamicin injection; such precautions should include precise labeling of all injectable solutions on the surgical field, waiting to draw up injectable antibiotics until the time they are needed, and drawing up injectable antibiotics under direct physician observation.
(11) If there’s a fire in the house, you don’t sit there saying we’re going to wait until the fire commissioner comes,” she said.
(12) Joe Gregory, parked outside the arena while waiting to pick up his girlfriend and her sister from the concert, captured its impact on his car’s dashcam.
(13) According to Nigerian government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillage sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller spills still waiting to be cleared up.
(14) At posttreatment, subjects in both active treatments reported significant improvement on self-report and interview measures of depression while subjects in the waiting list condition reported minimal change.
(15) Shenhua Watermark Coal, a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Shenhua Group, is waiting for final approval from Hunt for a $1.2bn open-cut coalmine on the edge of the plains, a little more than three kilometres from Hamparsum’s property.
(16) Separate calculation of changes in prolactin after the course of medical treatment, pregnancies or 'just waiting' periods showed mean PRL concentrations to be significantly lower only for 'functional' patients after pregnancy.
(17) It's also worth noting that if the Help to Buy scheme really does inflate house prices, by waiting five years before you buy you run the risk of not actually being able to save enough for a 10% deposit, because you'll need a bigger amount than you now need.
(18) Would I be stupid not to wait another six months or so, to get a 90% mortgage given the cons of Help to Buy?
(19) A group placed on a waiting list for 3 weeks was used as a control group.
(20) "I don't think that people are waiting for the wrong solution."