while

CEFRA1

/ʍaɪl/

conjunction · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
conjunction
During the time that something happens.
02
conjunction
Extra detail
During the same time that.

Examples

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
Seriously though, episode 21 made me almost cry while laughing.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 2
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Also pronounced

/wæl/
/waɪl/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
An uncertain long period of time
an uncertain short moment

More examples

In context

We must have been burgled while we were asleep.
He lectured for quite a long while.
He was sleeping while I was singing.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

She listened to music on her headphones blank she studied for the exam.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Do the good that's nearest Though it's dull at whiles.
1857, Charles Kingsley, [Letters and Memories]
There are whiles […] when ye are altogether too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me.
1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 22, in Kidnapped, page 158
Things were pretty dark for a while — several whiles, actually.
2017, Anne Thériault, “The Monster Book of Questions and Answers”, in Kelly Jensen, editor, Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World, Algonquin Young Readers, page 27
While the powwow was going on the big woman came back again. She was consider'ble rumpled and scratched up, but there was fire in her eye.
1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
While De Anza was exploring the Bay of San Francisco, seeking a site for the presidio, the American colonists on the eastern seaboard, three thousand miles away, were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
1948, Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States, J. B. Lippincott Company, page 25

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Origin

conjunction

From Middle English whyle, from Old English hwīl, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīlu, from Proto-Germanic *hwīlō (compare Dutch wijl, Low German Wiel, German Weile, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hvile (“rest”), Norwegian Nynorsk kvila (“rest”), Swedish vila (“rest”), Faroese and Icelandic hvíla (“rest”)) from Proto-Indo-European *kʷyeh₁- (“to rest”). Cognate with Albanian sillë (“breakfast”), Latin tranquillus, Sanskrit चिर (cirá), Persian شاد (šâd).