Waiter

Definitions

1. A male or female attendant who serves customers at their tables in a restaurant, café or similar.
2. Someone who waits for somebody or something; a person who is waiting.
3. A person working as an attendant at the London Stock Exchange.
   historical
4. A vessel or tray on which something is carried, as dishes, etc.; a salver. (See etymology of dumbwaiter.)
   obsolete
5. A custom house officer; a tide waiter.
   obsolete
6. A watchman.
   obsolete

Equivalents

Examples

“Waiter! There's a fly⟳ in my soup.”

“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.”

“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.’”

“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.”

“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 […]”

CEFR level