Meanings
- colloquialBound to happen; almost certain to occur in the future.
an accident waiting to happen, a divorce waiting to happen
1 more example
On the most prosaic level, there’s the section in the show when what appears to be a giant rope made of knotted sheets ascends to the roof and transforms itself into a swing. Bono selects a fan from the front row in an echo of U2’s fabled Live Aid performance, seats them in the swing and pushes them out over the audience: with the best will in the world, this seems less like stagecraft than an injury lawsuit waiting to happen.
2023 September 30, Alexis Petridis, “U2 review – an utterly astonishing, admirably raw Vegas extravaganza”, in The Guardian, London
Origin
Modeled after accident waiting to happen and disaster waiting to happen; more generic uses outside of those phrases apparently started decades later, c. 1960s.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Spanish por sobrevenir
- por sobrevenirTranslations
Cite this entry
waiting to happen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/waiting%20to%20happen
“waiting to happen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/waiting%20to%20happen. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “waiting to happen,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/waiting%20to%20happen.
Source: waiting to happen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.