The story
- Old Northern French · derived fromawaitier“to lie in wait for, watch, observe”
- Middle English · derived fromawaiten
- English todayawait
From Middle English awaiten, from Old Northern French awaitier (“to lie in wait for, watch, observe”), originally especially with a hostile sense; itself from a- (“to”) + waitier (“to watch”). More at English wait.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.