WOULD
What does "WOULD" mean?
A modal verb used to express conditions, polite requests, intentions, or the past of 'will'.
Meanings
- Used to express a hypothetical or conditional situation. If I had the time, I would learn the cello.
- Used to make a polite request or offer. Would you pass the salt, please?
- Used to describe a habitual action in the past. Every summer we would drive down to the coast.
- The past tense of 'will', expressing future-in-the-past or willingness. She said she would call when she landed.
Did you know?
- WOULD keeps a silent L it earned honestly from Old English 'wolde' - but its rhyming partner 'could' has no such history; that L was inserted later just to match 'would' and 'should'.
Word origin
From Old English 'wolde', the past tense of 'willan' (to wish, will, intend); the 'l' is silent in modern speech but kept in the spelling, paralleling 'could' and 'should'.
Remember it
WOULD, COULD, SHOULD - the silent-L trio; if you would write one, you should remember the OULD.
A little poem
A small word holding doors ajar-
would names the life that almost are.
couplet
Wordplay
- Would, could, and should walked into a bar - but the L was silent, so nobody heard them order.
What it teaches
'Would' is the grammar of the almost: a whole life can hide between what you will and what you would.
Quick facts
What does WOULD mean?
A modal verb used to express conditions, polite requests, intentions, or the past of 'will'.
Is WOULD a valid word?
Yes — WOULD is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is WOULD?
WOULD has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does WOULD come from?
From Old English 'wolde', the past tense of 'willan' (to wish, will, intend); the 'l' is silent in modern speech but kept in the spelling, paralleling 'could' and 'should'.
What can WOULD teach us?
'Would' is the grammar of the almost: a whole life can hide between what you will and what you would.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.