Busy waiting

In computer systems organization or operating systems, "busy waiting" refers to a process that keeps checking something (e.g., an I/O device) to see if it is ready so that it can proceed with the processing

In software engineering, busy-waiting, busy-looping or spinning is a technique in which a process repeatedly checks to see if a condition is true, such as whether keyboard input or a lock is available. Spinning can also be used to generate an arbitrary time delay, a technique that was necessary on systems that lacked a method of waiting a specific length of time.

busy wait