339: while versus awhile Nov 12, 2015

The terms 'a while' and 'awhile' are two different, even though they are often used seemingly interchangeably in colloquial text. The adverb, 'awhile' means "a short period of time" and is easily confused with the noun-phrase, 'a while' which is a period of time. The difference in general is that 'a while' follows a preposition, while 'awhile' does not, so that the sentences "we stopped awhile" and "we stopped for a while' both mean similar things but are structurally different.