Find the word definition

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Worth while

Worth \Worth\, a. [OE. worth, wur[thorn], AS. weor[eth], wurE; akin to OFries. werth, OS. wer[eth], D. waard, OHG. werd, G. wert, werth, Icel. ver[eth]r, Sw. v["a]rd, Dan. v[ae]rd, Goth. wa['i]rps, and perhaps to E. wary. Cf. Stalwart, Ware an article of merchandise, Worship.]

  1. Valuable; of worthy; estimable; also, worth while. [Obs.]

    It was not worth to make it wise.
    --Chaucer.

  2. Equal in value to; furnishing an equivalent for; proper to be exchanged for.

    A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats.
    --Shak.

    All our doings without charity are nothing worth.
    --Bk. of Com. Prayer.

    If your arguments produce no conviction, they are worth nothing to me.
    --Beattie.

  3. Deserving of; -- in a good or bad sense, but chiefly in a good sense.

    To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.
    --Milton.

    This is life indeed, life worth preserving.
    --Addison.

  4. Having possessions equal to; having wealth or estate to the value of.

    At Geneva are merchants reckoned worth twenty hundred crowns.
    --Addison.

    Worth while, or Worth the while. See under While, n.

Worth while

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.]

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

Wiktionary
worth while

a. (alternative spelling of worthwhile English)

Usage examples of "worth while".

You say he is too young to have a position worth while at the plant, but of course he's old enough to go to war and have a leg shot off, or to be blinded, or something.

The editorial comments frequently are able enough, but is it worth while keeping an expensive mill going to grind chaff?

I can see him now standing on the sill, looking about at the sky as if he was thinking whether it were worth while to take an umbrella, until he was near having his tail shut in.

But I proposed no long stay at Cosenza, where malarial fever is endemic, and it did not seem worth while to change my quarters.

Moreover, just as I had thought that it was perhaps worth while to run the risk of another illness—.

It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman.

However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing.

I never advise old women: for, if they take it into their heads to go to the devil, it is no more possible, than worth while to keep them from him.

If you think it worth while to sacrifice that to the possession of me, I am yours.

I had pondered, and it had come to me that she had been right to suggest that in matters of love what is not freely given it is not worth while to take.

It was hardly worth while to work out such an elaborate plan of action if you intended to take the matter out of my hands without telling me.

If the Westons think it worth while to be at all this trouble for a few hours of noisy entertainment, I have nothing to say against it, but that they shall not chuse pleasures for me.

And she'll never have time to do anything worth while with her music.

If he could only express these thwarted lives, the miserable dullness of industrialized slaughter, it might have been almost worth while—.

Strefford's approval of the philosophic romance convinced her that it had been worth while staying in Venice for Nick's sake.