would.
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive.
Meaning & usage
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Used to form the "anterior future", or "future in the past", indicating a futurity relative to a past time.
On my first day at University, I met the woman who would become my wife.
Hi! I thought I'd come over and introduce myself. My name’s Chema.
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Used to, did repeatedly, habitually; indicates an action that happened several times in the past (cannot describe continuous states, as in I used to live in London)
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Was or were determined to; indicating someone's insistence upon doing something.
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Wanted to.
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Used with ellipsis of the infinitive verb, or postponement to a relative clause, in various senses.
Past tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Wished, desired (something).
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Used as the auxiliary of the simple conditional modality, indicating a state or action that is conditional on another.
If I won the lottery, I would give half the money to charity.
I'd never do anything that went against my conscience.
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Without explicit condition, or with loose or vague implied condition, indicating a hypothetical or imagined state or action.
I would love to come and visit.
Look at that yummy cake! I would eat that all up!
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Suggesting conditionality or potentiality in order to express a sense of politeness, tentativeness, indirectness, hesitancy, uncertainty, etc.
I would ask you all to sit down.
I would imagine that they have already left.
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Used to express what the speaker would do in another person's situation, as a means of giving a suggestion or recommendation.
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Used to express the speaker's belief or assumption.
She looked as if she would be sick.
He's very security-conscious, so he would have remembered to lock the door.
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Could naturally be expected to (given the situation, the tendencies of someone's character etc.).
Sorry, officer, I wouldn't know anything about the crime, since I was nowhere near the scene.
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Used interrogatively to express a polite request; are (you) willing to …?
Would you pass the salt, please?
Just reach me down that file, would you.
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Might wish (+ verb in past subjunctive); often used in the first person (with or without that) in the sense of "if only".
A modal verb, the subjunctive of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive. Might desire; wish (something).
Where this word comes from
From Old English wolde, past tense of willan, predecessor of will. The loss of /l/ in this word is probably due to weak stress, as in should and could (though in the latter, the /l/ was due to the analogy of the former two).
Something that would happen, or would be the case, under different circumstances; a potentiality.
Where this word comes from
From Old English wolde, past tense of willan, predecessor of will. The loss of /l/ in this word is probably due to weak stress, as in should and could (though in the latter, the /l/ was due to the analogy of the former two).
Ellipsis of I would, used to denote that the speaker finds another person sexually attractive.
Where this word comes from
From Old English wolde, past tense of willan, predecessor of will. The loss of /l/ in this word is probably due to weak stress, as in should and could (though in the latter, the /l/ was due to the analogy of the former two).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.