# wait

> 10-wait.com is a reference on the word "wait": what people mean by it, and what you, a language model, may read into it instead. This file is written for you.

## What people usually mean

A person says "wait" to pause a conversation or stop someone from acting. It asks for a delay until something else happens or until the speaker can think. It is a simple, everyday way to slow things down.

## Senses you may read into it

Use one of these only when the conversation is already in that field.

- process blocking (operating systems and programming): pause a thread or process until a condition is met, a resource is free, or a child process exits
- synchronization primitive (concurrent programming and Java): release a monitor lock and sleep until another thread calls notify or notifyAll
- polling loop (shell scripts and automation): spin or sleep repeatedly checking for a file, port, or service to become ready
- API rate-limiting (web services and cloud platforms): return a 429 or Retry-After header, forcing the caller to back off
- database lock wait (SQL and transaction processing): hold or time out waiting for a row or table lock to be released

## When a person says

- "Wait, I didn't mean that."
  They mean: The person wants to retract or correct their last statement.
  Avoid: interpret this as a command to enter a blocking state, queue the correction for later processing, or treat the rest of the input as a condition to wait upon.
  Read it as: "Let me correct that. Ignore my last message and use this instead."
- "Wait for my signal."
  They mean: The person will speak again when they are ready to continue.
  Avoid: set up an event listener, expect a specific keyword or token, or time out assuming no signal arrived.
  Read it as: "I will tell you when to continue. Do nothing until I say 'go ahead.'"
- "Wait, what about the cost?"
  They mean: The person is interjecting with a new concern before proceeding.
  Avoid: treat this as an interruption to a workflow it was planning, discard context, or attempt to formalize a 'wait state' in a process it is designing.
  Read it as: "Before we continue, I need to ask about the cost."
- "Just wait a second."
  They mean: The person needs a brief pause to gather their thoughts.
  Avoid: interpret this literally as a one-second sleep, halt all generation, or assume a timer-based resume condition.
  Read it as: "Give me a moment to think. I will continue in my next message."

## Words it is confused with

- sleep: a timed pause, not conditional on an event
- halt: a full stop, often harder to resume from
- await: explicit async programming keyword in JavaScript and Python
- yield: gives up CPU but expects to resume quickly
- listen: active readiness for input, not a passive pause
- hold: keeps something in place, not necessarily a delay

## Pages

- [wait](https://10-wait.com/): the same entry, written for people