wait for the ball to drop in English

Audio: En-au-wait for the ball to drop.ogg

Forms: waits for the ball to drop [present, singular, third-person], waiting for the ball to drop [participle, present], waited for the ball to drop [participle, past], waited for the ball to drop [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Etymology: An allusion to the Times Square Ball, and perhaps other time balls. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} wait for the ball to drop (third-person singular simple present waits for the ball to drop, present participle waiting for the ball to drop, simple past and past participle waited for the ball to drop)

Inflected forms

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the Times Square Ball, and perhaps other time balls.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "waits for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waiting for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "wait for the ball to drop (third-person singular simple present waits for the ball to drop, present participle waiting for the ball to drop, simple past and past participle waited for the ball to drop)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To wait in expectation of an occurrence."
      ],
      "id": "en-wait_for_the_ball_to_drop-en-verb-jmvXiH7d",
      "links": [
        [
          "wait",
          "wait"
        ],
        [
          "expectation",
          "expectation"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, rare) To wait in expectation of an occurrence."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "wait for the other shoe to drop"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "rare"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-wait for the ball to drop.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b9/En-au-wait_for_the_ball_to_drop.ogg/En-au-wait_for_the_ball_to_drop.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/En-au-wait_for_the_ball_to_drop.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "wait for the ball to drop"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the Times Square Ball, and perhaps other time balls.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "waits for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waiting for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for the ball to drop",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "wait for the ball to drop (third-person singular simple present waits for the ball to drop, present participle waiting for the ball to drop, simple past and past participle waited for the ball to drop)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "wait for the other shoe to drop"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with rare senses",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To wait in expectation of an occurrence."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "wait",
          "wait"
        ],
        [
          "expectation",
          "expectation"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, rare) To wait in expectation of an occurrence."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "rare"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-wait for the ball to drop.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b9/En-au-wait_for_the_ball_to_drop.ogg/En-au-wait_for_the_ball_to_drop.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/En-au-wait_for_the_ball_to_drop.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "wait for the ball to drop"
}

Download raw JSONL data for wait for the ball to drop meaning in English (1.6kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (e937b02 and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"wait for the ball to drop" meaning in English

Verb

Inflected forms