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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

waiter.

A male or female attendant who serves customers at their tables in a restaurant, café or similar.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈweɪ̯təː/Received-Pronunciation[ˈweɪ̯tʰəː]Received-Pronunciation/ˈwæɪ̯təː/[ˈwæ̝ɪ̯tʰəː] ~ [ˈwæ̝ɪ̯tʰɐ̝ː]

  1. A male or female attendant who serves customers at their tables in a restaurant, café or similar.

    Waiter! There's a fly in my soup.

  2. Someone who waits for somebody or something; a person who is waiting.

  3. A person working as an attendant at the London Stock Exchange.

    historical

  4. A vessel or tray on which something is carried, as dishes, etc.; a salver. (See etymology of dumbwaiter.)

    obsolete

  5. A custom house officer; a tide waiter.

    obsolete

  6. A watchman.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From late 14th century Middle English waiter, wayter (“attendant, watchman”). By surface analysis, wait + -er. Sense of "servant who waits at tables" is from late 15th century, originally in reference to household servants; in reference to inns, eating houses, etc., it is attested from 1660s. Feminine form waitress first recorded 1834. The London Stock Exchange sense harks back to the early days of trading in coffee-shops.

verb/ˈweɪ̯təː/Received-Pronunciation[ˈweɪ̯tʰəː]Received-Pronunciation/ˈwæɪ̯təː/[ˈwæ̝ɪ̯tʰəː] ~ [ˈwæ̝ɪ̯tʰɐ̝ː]

  1. To work as a waiter.

    stative
Where this word comes from

From late 14th century Middle English waiter, wayter (“attendant, watchman”). By surface analysis, wait + -er. Sense of "servant who waits at tables" is from late 15th century, originally in reference to household servants; in reference to inns, eating houses, etc., it is attested from 1660s. Feminine form waitress first recorded 1834. The London Stock Exchange sense harks back to the early days of trading in coffee-shops.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.