Clishmaclaver brings you the Friday Word Fact, care of blog.dictionary.com. 😉 Few word pairs capture the idiosyncrasies of the English language as effectively as a while and awhile. Both of these terms are expressions of time, and both have been in use for over a century, but one is written with a space while the other is one word. What are the differences in meaning between the two? And what are the appropriate uses of each?