Definition of "waiting game" []

• The stratagem of deferring action and allowing the passage of time to work in one's favor. (noun)

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.

• "When Mr. Odo Russell called on Cavour in December 1858, he remarked that Austria had only to play a waiting game to wear out the financial resources of Piedmont, while, on the other hand, Piedmont would forfeit the sympathies of Europe if it precipitated matters by a declaration of war."
• "Of course it was the hardest job, the least popular, which was why Lepidus, given Lucius Antonius’s six legions, had scuttled off to Africa, there to play a waiting game and accumulate more troops."