while
n. countablen. a period of time. You use it to talk about a short or medium amount of time without being exact.
n. a period of time, typically of indeterminate length. Often used in prepositional phrases to indicate duration or a point in the past.
I am going to sit here for a while.
We haven't seen our neighbors for a long while, so we should check on them.
After the initial shock of the announcement, there was a while where nobody spoke, as the team collectively processed the implications of the merger.
From Middle English whyle, from Old English hwīl, from Proto-West Germanic hwīlu, from Proto-Germanic hwīlō (compare Dutch wijl, Low German Wiel, German Weile, Danish hvile (“rest”), Norwegian Bokmål hvile (“rest”)), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷyeh₁- (“to rest”). Cognate with Albanian sillë (“breakfast”), Latin tranquillus, Sanskrit चिर (cirá), Persian شاد (šâd).
Usually occurs in the singular form and is frequently preceded by 'a' or 'the'.
I haven't seen him since a while.I haven't seen him for a while.Learners often use 'since' with 'a while', but 'since' requires a specific point in time; 'for' is used for durations.