whiles

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: (h)wīlz, IPA^(key): /(h)waɪlz/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪlz
• Homophone: wiles (wine–whine merger)

Etymology 1

From while (noun) +‎ -s (adverbial suffix); compare whilst.

Adverb

whiles (not comparable)

1. (archaic or Scotland) sometimes; at times
   • 1927, John Buchan, Witch Wood‎^[1], 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.

2. (archaic or Scotland) meanwhile
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     the good knight whiles humming to himself the lay of some majored troubadour

Conjunction

whiles

1. (archaic or dialect) while, whilst
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Portia: […] Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.

   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [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.

Related terms

• to-whiles

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Noun

whiles

1. plural of while

Verb

whiles

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of while

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʍəilz/
• Rhymes: -əilz

Adverb

whiles

1. Sometimes

   Whiles thay gang tae the strand, but maistly tae the bens- Sometimes they go to the beach, but mostly to the mountains