whiles
English
Pronunciation
- enPR: wīlz, IPA(key): /waɪlz/
- Rhymes: -aɪlz
- Homophone: wiles (in accents with the wine-whine merger)
Adverb
whiles (not comparable)
- (archaic or Scotland) sometimes; at times
- 1927, John Buchan, Witch Wood, published 1988, page 14:
- Man, I've diverted myself whiles with the science of the stars, and can make a shape at calculating a nativity.
-
- (archaic or Scotland) meanwhile
- Sir Walter Scott
- the good knight whiles humming to himself the lay of some majored troubadour
- Sir Walter Scott
Conjunction
whiles
- (archaic or dialectal) while
- c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I scene ii:
- Portia: […] Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV scene i:
- for it so falls out, / That what we have we prize not to the worth / Whiles we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost, / Why, then we rack the value, then we find / The virtue that possession would not show us / Whiles it was ours.
- c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I scene ii:
Scots
Pronunciation
- enPR: wīlz, IPA(key): /waɪlz/
- Rhymes: -aɪlz
Adverb
whiles
- Sometimes
- Whiles thay gang tae the strand, but maistly tae the bens- Sometimes they go to the beach, but mostly to the mountains
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