for a while

1. 1.

   for a short time

   “sit down and stay awhile”

   “they settled awhile in Virginia before moving West”

   “the baby was quiet for a while”

   Synonymsawhile

Questions about for a while

What does for a while mean?

for a while means "for a short time".

What is another word for for a while?

Close synonyms include awhile. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is for a while a common word?

for a while is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.