Wait Winthrop (February 27, 1641/2 – November 7, 1717) was a colonial magistrate, military officer, and politician of New England. Named Waitstill at birth, he preferred the shortened name "Wait". He was chief judge of the Massachusetts superior court (the highest court in the Province of Massachusetts Bay), and was a long-time councilor and contender for the governorship of Massachusetts. He was the son of John Winthrop the Younger and the grandson of John Winthrop, a leading founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During King Philip's War in the 1670s and King William's War in the 1690s he led the Massachusetts provincial militia. Politically populist, he worked against royal governors, especially Joseph Dudley, and sought the restoration of the first Massachusetts charter.