won't

See also: wont and wo'n't

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From earlier wonnot, from Middle English wynnot, wilnot, wolnot, wilnat, a contraction of Middle English will not, wil not, wyll not, will noght, wil noht, willi noȝt, wyl nat, wol not, woll not, wole not, wolle not, wol nat, woll nat, etc., equivalent to a will +‎ not and/or woll +‎ not.[1] For the pronunciation with /oʊ/, /əʊ/, see poultry.[2]

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /wəʊnt/
  • (General American) enPR: wōnt, IPA(key): /woʊnt/, [wõt(ˀ)], [wõʔ]
  • (Canada) IPA(key): [woːnt]
    • (nonstandard) IPA(key): [wo(ː)ɫnt], [wʊ(ɫ)nt]
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Audio (General Australian):(file)
  • Homophone: wont (one pronunciation)
  • Rhymes: -əʊnt

Verb

won't

  1. will not (negative auxiliary[3]); used to indicate a future non-occurring action.
    Sam won't be doing any work this afternoon.
    Come in, won’t you?
    Mom won’t have the house turned into a hostel.

Synonyms

Coordinate terms

Translations

See also

  • Appendix:English modal verbs
  • Appendix:English tag questions

References

  1. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20170604050039/http://www.dictionary.com/browse/won-t
  2. ^ Dobson, E. J. (1957) English pronunciation 1500-1700‎[1], second edition, volume II: Phonology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1968, →OCLC, § 425, page 990.
  3. ^ Arnold M. Zwicky and Geoffrey K. Pullum, Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t, Language 59 (3), 1983, pp. 502-513

Anagrams

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.