Meanings
- Depending on the expected arrival of a result, confirmation, etc.
1 more example
Throughout her adolescence, authorities... commented that the young mother-in-waiting 'seem[ed] to have very, very high expectations of [her]self,' and... there was no failing to discern in them that slight unmistakable note of approval... and at any rate the future mother felt (for the moment) approved.
1999, David Foster Wallace, “Suicide as a Sort of Present”, in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Little, Brown and Company - About to happen; bound to happen.
Choosing such an unqualified person to operate the machine is an accident-in-waiting.
Cite this entry
-in-waiting. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-in-waiting
“-in-waiting.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-in-waiting. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “-in-waiting,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-in-waiting.
Source: -in-waiting on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.