Definition of "while" []

• A period of time: stay for a while; sang all the while. See Usage Note at awhile. (noun)
• The time, effort, or trouble taken in doing something: The project wasn't worth my while. (noun)
• As long as; during the time that: It was lovely while it lasted. (conjunction)
• At the same time that; although: While the grandparents love the children, they are strict with them. (conjunction)
• Whereas; and: The soles are leather, while the uppers are canvas. (conjunction)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Gibreel, with the Imam riding him like a carpet, swoops lower, and in the steaming night it looks as if the streets are alive, they seem to be writhing, like snakes; while in front of the palace of the Empress's defeat a new hill seems to be growing, _while we watch, baba, what's going on here?"
• "Alexander, dum inter prīmōrēs pugnat, sagittā ictus est, _Alexander, while he was fighting in the van, was struck by an arrow_; dum haec geruntur, in fīnēs Venellōrum pervēnit, _while these things were being done, he arrived in the territory of the Venelli_."
• ""I do not know -- but someday you and all in the world will see it, when the Earth people are kind to each other -- not once in a while, but every day -- _all the while_ --""