waiter

plural waiters

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 more examples

   She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   A waiter brought his aperitif, which was a small scotch and soda, and as he sipped it gratefully he sighed. ‘Civilized,’ he said to Mr. Campion. ‘Humanizing.’ […] ‘Cigars and summer days and women in big hats with swansdown face-powder, that's what it reminds me of.’

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

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

   However, the NTPF also contained implicit negative incentives for the public sector by offering alternative private sector treatment for the longest waiters at no extra cost to patients or no penalty to public providers.

   2013, Siciliani Luigi, Borowitz Michael, Moran Valerie, OECD Health Policy Studies: Waiting Time Policies in the Health Sector

3. historicalA person working as an attendant at the London Stock Exchange.
4. obsoleteA vessel or tray on which something is carried, as dishes, etc.; a salver. (See etymology of dumbwaiter.)

   Cautioning her, in these terms, not to trip over a heterogeneous litter of pastry-cook’s trays, lamps, waiters full of glasses, and piles of rout seats which were strewn about the hall, plainly bespeaking a late party on the previous night, the man led the way to the second story […]

   1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

   1 more example

   RUSTOMJEE PESTONJEE will sell by Public Auction, on MONDAY, the 9th instant, at his Rooms, in Medow Street, the property of the late Captain Ord, 3rd Regt. N.I., comprising a Double Barrelled Gun, by Baker, Silver Tea and Sugar Pots, four pairs of Muffiniers, Spoons and Forks, &c., a pair of Plated Hotwater Curry Dishes, Waiters, Candlesticks, Dessert Knives and Forks, &c. &c., also, the Effects of several deceased persons.

   1862 February 5, Rustomjee Pestonjee & Co., “Sale by Public Auction, by Order of the Administrator General”, in The Bombay Gazette and Indian Daily News, number 5,499 (New Series), Bombay: Bombay Gazette Press, →OCLC, page 4, column 5

5. obsoleteA custom house officer; a tide waiter.
6. obsoleteA watchman.

present singular third person waiters · participle present waitering · participle past waitered · past waitered

1. stativeTo work as a waiter.

   He dropped out and waitered at the Spain but was fired for throwing water in a customer’s face.

   1993, Eric Gabriel Lehman, Quaspeck: A Novel, San Francisco, Calif.: Mercury House, →ISBN, page 102

   2 more examples

   I had definitely had my fill of factory jobs, but had never worked in an office, nor bussed, nor waitered.

   1992, James Kenneth Melson, “Iowa Boy in the Windy City”, in The Golden Boy, The Haworth Press, →ISBN, page 46

   John [Jasper] started out as a cart boy, helping the ox-cart driver manage the oxen; but he was so smart that he was soon transferred to the house, where he waitered and worked in the garden.

   2008, Jim Haskins, Kathleen Benson, “John Jasper”, in African American Religious Leaders (Black Stars), John Wiley & Sons, Inc., page 43