What's the difference between wail and wait?

Wail


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To choose; to select.
  • (v. t.) To lament; to bewail; to grieve over; as, to wail one's death.
  • (v. i.) To express sorrow audibly; to make mournful outcry; to weep.
  • (n.) Loud weeping; violent lamentation; wailing.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) You couldn't get much more bohemian than the music playing in this room of tiny round tables, first French crooner Serge Gainsbourg and then cabaret freak Scott Walker wailing of their obelisk-size pain.
  • (2) Every now and then some rich Oga or Madam comes along in their bulletproof cars and wailing sirens, and distorts the delicate equilibrium of this body of traffic.
  • (3) In groups 1 and 2, clusters of cylindrical tubules, typical of the male gland, decreased in number and disappeared almost completely 2 wailed in these two groups throughout the remaining period of experiment.
  • (4) "Barcelona's habit of playing midfielders in defence will do them more harm than good," he wails.
  • (5) "Gnnmph, I can't 'ave it 'ere, I 'aven't 'ad my enema," wails a labouring housewife, straining fruitlessly on a communal tenement bog as horrified neighbours look on in their rollers.
  • (6) There were moments when music seemed to struggle to be heard over the tocking of iPod clickwheels and the wailing of record company executives.
  • (7) The army cleared itself of responsibility for the killing of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach three weeks ago during an artillery barrage after many Israelis were shaken by television pictures of a traumatised child wailing over the body of her father.
  • (8) While Arsenal fans have spent the last nine years gnashing and wailing, Hull supporters have cheered the incredible resurrection of their club, as David Conn explains here .
  • (9) Some family members, after years of begging for mercy and receiving none, broke down and wailed.
  • (10) The big story Once upon a time the Oscar ceremony was a comforting drone punctuated only by the odd song-and-dance routine and the banshee wailing of overwhelmed best actress award winners.
  • (11) Elsewhere on the carpet Quentin Tarantino is having a bop with Uma Thurman (again), Xavier Dolan is wearing an outrageous tux (again) and the boring normal people at the barriers are wailing for stars' attention (again).
  • (12) Later that night, Lola wailed in the street as the police prised her baby from her arms and led her into custody.
  • (13) Family members who had gathered at a hotel in Beijing wailed as they heard the news.
  • (14) Naderi offered his prayers to Dhu’s family at the end of his evidence, saying: “I wish I was able to pick up any abnormal signs that may have made a difference.” Carol Roe ran crying from the courtroom, her wail flowing back through the door to where Naderi was seated in the witness box.
  • (15) Sorrowful wails and sobs resounded as thousands of Rwandans packed the country's main sports stadium to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of a devastating 100-day genocide.
  • (16) Sandy breaking out of the compound BB3 Sandy's insistence on his quirkiness got rather wearing, so it was just as well he made a bid for escape, with his new best friend Alex wailing, "Be careful, Sandy, be careful!"
  • (17) Starbucks admitted that while it can (quite incredibly) claim that its 700 UK stores are not profitable, through wails of what seemed like crocodile tears, its 30 coffee traders in Switzerland make an enormous 20% profit margin despite never seeing a coffee bean; a fact that the committee could not have helped noting might be related to the 12% tax it pays in that state.
  • (18) Their players are distraught and making a mess of everything, while the TV producer here is having an absolute ball picking out wailing Brazilians in the crowd.
  • (19) Another shows a scene of villagers wailing with grief: “Villagers grieve as their friend is put into the ambulance,” the voiceover says.
  • (20) Among those who finally decided that Kobani was on the brink was Mukdad Bozan, travelling with his wife, a wailing baby and three bedraggled older children.

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."

Words possibly related to "wail"

Words possibly related to "wait"