Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several plants having sharp, often hooked thorns that can become caught in clothing, such as a thorny African acacia or a catbrier.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The greenbrier.
  • noun Any of various species of hawthorn.
  • noun In South Africa, one of numerous acacias and mimosas.
  • noun The grapple plant.
  • noun The prickly ash.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun any of several small bushes with sharp hooked thorns.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Translation of Afrikaans wag-'n-bietjie.]

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Examples

  • I did neither; I enjoy a good performance as well as the next licentious rascal, and never mind playing wait-a-bit with a coquette who knows her business.

    Watershed 2010

  • We were an odd pair of scallywags to look at, but as South African as a wait-a-bit bush.

    Greenmantle 2005

  • The country beyond consisted of large patches of trap-covered tufa, having little soil or vegetation except tufts of grass and wait-a-bit thorns, in the midst of extensive sandy, grass-covered plains.

    Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa 2004

  • There the vegetation consists of fine grass growing in tufts among low bushes of the “wait-a-bit” thorn

    Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa 2004

  • The adjacent country is all covered with low, thorny scrub, with grass, and here and there clumps of the “wait-a-bit thorn”, or

    Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa 2004

  • A jungle of mimosa, ebony, and “wait-a-bit” thorn lies between the Chicova flats and the cultivated plain, on which stand the villages of the chief, Chitora.

    A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries 2004

  • The horse, on feeling the lion on him, sprang away, and the rider, caught by a wait-a-bit thorn, was brought to the ground and rendered insensible.

    Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa 2004

  • I took a pair of EFT cards out of my baldric and programmed them with the agreed amounts, flapped a wait-a-bit paw at the two Y'tata, and addressed the man at the table.

    Sagittarius Whorl May, Julian 2001

  • I did neither; I enjoy a good performance as well as the next licentious rascal, and never mind playing wait-a-bit with a coquette who knows her business.

    Flashman And The Tiger Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1999

  • A. mellifera subsp. detinens derived its common name (wait-a-bit tree) from the pairs of small hooks on the branches.

    Chapter 2 1994

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