The Collaborative International Dictionary
While \While\, n. [AS. hw[=i]l; akin to OS. hw[=i]l, hw[=i]la, OFries. hw[=i]le, D. wigl, G. weile, OHG. w[=i]la, hw[=i]la, hw[=i]l, Icel. hv[=i]la a bed, hv[=i]ld rest, Sw. hvila, Dan. hvile, Goth. hweila a time, and probably to L. quietus quiet, and perhaps to Gr. ? the proper time of season. [root]20. Cf. Quiet, Whilom.]
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Space of time, or continued duration, esp. when short; a time; as, one while we thought him innocent. ``All this while.''
--Shak.This mighty queen may no while endure.
--Chaucer.[Some guest that] hath outside his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile.
--Coleridge.I will go forth and breathe the air a while.
--Longfellow. -
That which requires time; labor; pains. [Obs.]
Satan . . . cast him how he might quite her while.
--Chaucer.At whiles, at times; at intervals.
And so on us at whiles it falls, to claim Powers that we dread.
--J. H. Newman.The while, The whiles, in or during the time that; meantime; while.
--Tennyson.Within a while, in a short time; soon.
Worth while, worth the time which it requires; worth the time and pains; hence, worth the expense; as, it is not always worth while for a man to prosecute for small debts.
Usage examples of "the while".
I knew that we needed to keep our quality high, manufacturing and transportation costs under control, sales pitches sharp, marketing materials magnificent, employees satisfied and growing, cash flowing, and all the while ensuring that our mission and core values were not compromised.
But when she had brought me into the cot again, she kissed me and clipped me, weeping sorely the while.
And all the while his eyes scoured the opposite side of the street—.
I asked questions, fed him sorting terms, and showed him maps, all the while reading his energy field.
All the while, the sky continued to darken slowly, the dun and dismal brown that I had first perceived turning through almost imperceptible changes of tone to a dead funereal purple, wherein the sun smouldered like a moon that had risen from a bath of blood.
They spoke together quietly for several moments, and all the while Garion could feel the force of Belgarath's will, infused and magnified by the will of Aldur, growing stronger and stronger.
Moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the while, they were, with their swaying bodies, black faces, and glowing eyes, like strange and ugly fiends jigging heavily in the smoke.
He was waving his free arm in furious circles, the while shrieking mad calls and appeals, urging on those that did not need to be urged, for it seemed that the mob of blue men hurling themselves on the dangerous group of rifles were again grown suddenly wild with an enthusiasm of unselfishness.
And all the while that this agonized questioning went on within him, he talked flippantly to Conrad, enraging the cross-grained doorkeeper to the point of homicidal mania.
And all the while his employers studied him, feeling for the truths within.
Yet I do not know but these tranquil old women have been sitting here on the rocks all the while, high above change and worry and decay, gossiping and spinning, like Fates.
One might sit here all day watching it, listening the while to the melodious spring singing of the hundreds of birds which have come to take possession of the garden, receiving southern reinforcements from Sicily and Tunis every morning, and think he was happy.
Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds.
Sir Lionel Barton listened, sitting quite still the while--an unusual repose in a man of such evidently tremendous nervous activity.
So Diamond sat down again, took the baby in his lap, and began poking his face into its little body, laughing and singing all the while, so that the baby crowed like a little bantam.