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I've just heard
your sister is waiting on you
with the meaning of wait for (as in wait for the bus).
Up to now I had only encountered wait on with the meaning of attend to / serve.
Is this use of wait on instead of wait for widely spread in the English speaking world or more specific to certain geographical areas?
In the sentence I'm quoting above, and without further context, could there be any ambiguity as to the meaning?
It's regional in U.S. English. Much of the U.S. says "waiting for you", but I believe that much of the South says "waiting on you". I don't know exactly what regions use "wait on" (not the Northeast), and a couple of minutes of Googling didn't find any answers, so I can't be more specific.
Wait on has numerous meanings. In the OP’s example, it means, in the words of the OED’s definition, ‘remain in one place in expectation of’, in other words, wait for. The OED’s citations supporting this sense range from 1694 to 1984. The OED gives no indication of regional bias, but I wouldn’t say the use was ‘widely spread’. As for ambiguity, most of the time context removes it, and I would say it would generally do so in this case.
"Wait on" as a synonym for "wait for" is something I've heard much more in US English than British English, but it is used in that sense. They're pretty much synonymous. And yes, you're right that the sentence "your sister is waiting on you" is ambiguous, and so it's probably best to avoid using the colloquial "wait on" for this meaning.
I think to a considerable extent the choice of preposition is regional, stylistic, or simply arbitrary, as other answers indicate. But in the UK at least, whereas I'm waiting for John is much more common than ...on John, there's a difference in how we add more detail...
I'm waiting on John [doing something]
I'm waiting for John [to do something]
...so it's always I'm waiting on John arriving or I'm waiting for John to arrive, never the reverse.
If it's obvious what we're actually waiting for John to do, we often omit it - particularly if we're just waiting for him to arrive. But as mentioned elsewhere, even Brits are likely to use on, not for in respect of computer code waiting on a status flag (changing in value, which we invariably omit).
I have lived in Texas longer (22 years) than I've lived anywhere else (IA, IL, NH, CA...) and Texas is the only place I've noticed people say "waitin' on" when they mean "waiting for." In fact, I searched for these two phrases today because yesterday at Walmart after I'd swiped my card at the register, the terminal said, "Waiting on cashier..." I thought it was funny that this regionalism had made it into a display terminal. Does the argument that "everyone says that these days" mean that it's OK to say "10 items or less," too? Nope, still wrong.
I would be interested to know from our northern contributors if they see the same message at their Walmart when they swipe their card.
I suggest that in the Queen's English, to wait on suggests to serve, not to wait for. Don't overlook the fact that English is the language of England, not that of the US.
I love and lament the opinions of certain contributors to this board that English from England is more pure (and therefore more correct) than the English from colonials. Anyone who has done research into how language changes in the mother country vs. her colonies knows that precisely the opposite is true - that linguistic change in colonies tends to proceed slower than in the mother country.
Regarding "wait for" versus "wait on" and the assertion by @Lightness-Races-in-Orbit that no one in England would use "wait on" except Mick Jagger, I would point out William Shakespeare (a famous Englishman) used it all the time.
In fact, searching for these terms in the online Shakespeare concordance http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org, which shows you where and how many times the Bard used a certain word, reveals that although the great man used "wait for" four times (and "await for" once), he used "wait on" 16 times and "wait upon" 22 times. This is a whopping victory for the pedigree of "wait on" made even more whopping if "wait upon" is included.
I also draw readers' attention to German "warten auf", which means "to wait on / for" something and the fact that "auf" is cognate with English "on". That German and English were the same language many hundreds of years ago is also evidence that "wait on" is the older form, and that "wait for" is the upstart.
In conclusion "wait on" has just as much of a claim to "correctness" as "wait for". Use whichever you want, and know that if you use "wait on" then you are using the language of Shakespeare. Of course you should also know that nowadays "wait for" is more common and more formal. If that is important to you, then go with the upstart.
I am from Texas and I would say that "wait on" is used more commonly than "wait for" in this region at least. I have also lived in other parts of the south and California and I have never experienced anyone not understanding what was meant when I said "wait on".
I would argue that context, like in numerous languages is important and relevant.
There are plenty of phrases and idioms in the English language that don't translate literally so it seems that, at times, focus should be placed on accepted use and not pedagogy.
Also, with respect to @guestspeaker's comments above about Shakespeare and @Tristan's response, it is clear that @guestspeaker was making a point about how American English is arguably more "pure" than British English despite what others have argued. So, the fact that Shakespeare is "hardly up-to-date" is actually exactly the point @guestspeaker was making.
"Wait on" was standard in England in the 18C: Dr. Johnson consistently uses it, or at least Boswell represents him as doing so.
It's commonly used in Computer Science; you wait on a mutex (A "mutex" is an object that regulates Mutual Exclusion)
Google Ngrams ("wait on, wait for") shows the two phrases comparable up to 1700, and since then "wait on" getting progressively less common and "wait for" more so. It doesn't appear to show any significant difference in British and American usage since 1800.
This search does not exclude the other sense of "wait on", so the 10:1 prevalence of "wait for" it shows for 2000 is clearly significantly lower than the ratio of uses with the meaning you are interested in.
"Waiting on" is not a phrase I would ever use in this sense. I think that without context the sentence is indeed ambiguous.
According to bab.la, "to wait for" is a lot more common than "to wait on". (43% vs. 3%.)
Both are acceptable. A waitress waiting on a customer in a restaurant means exactly the same thing as a mother waiting on a child's response to a question. The inference is standing ready in a state of suspension pending some future activity. The server stands ready awaiting instructions from the table.
IMO this exemplifies the erosion of semantic precision as a result of sloppy common usage.
When I was a lad, we were taught that wait on is to be used only when to serve is meant; it was never correct to use wait on as a substitute for wait for. I notice, however, that this distinction is disappearing in American usage, particularly in the west. But I see it in both written and spoken usage in all regions. As some have stated here, though, wait on is rarely used for wait for in British or other non-US usage.
The Computer Science use of wait on is sloppy. You are in fact waiting FOR the mutex to become free; you are in no sense serving the mutex. I, for one, only use wait on when I mean to serve.
Use "wait for" and you will be correct much more often. The only reason I can think of to use "wait on" is if you're telling someone where to wait, such as "on" a railway platform, or "on" a particular street corner. "Wait for Ted on the corner of sixth and main." You wait "for" the event, while positioned "on" a location.
