wasn't
See also: wasnt
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- wadn't, warn't, wudn't, wunt (pronunciation spellings)
- wa'n't, wan't (pronunciation spellings, colloquial, dated)
- wasnt (informal, nonstandard)
- wazn't, wuzn't, wuzzent (eye dialect)
Etymology
[edit]Contraction of was + not. By surface analysis, was + -n't.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈwɒz.ənt/, [ˈwɒz.n̩(ʔ)], (colloquial, Yorkshire) IPA(key): [ˈwɒn.(ʔ)]
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (US) IPA(key): /ˈwʌz.ənt/, [ˈwʌz.n̩(t)] (colloquial, dialectal) IPA(key): [ˈwʌd.n̩(t)]
Audio (General American): (file) - Hyphenation: was‧n't
- Rhymes: (RP) -ɒzənt
- Rhymes: (GA) -ʌzənt
Verb
[edit]wasn't
- (chiefly in the negative, auxiliary) Contraction of was + not.[1]
- 1899, Hughes Mearns, Antigonish:
- Yesterday, upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there / He wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away …
Derived terms
[edit]See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Zwicky, Arnold M[elchior].; Pullum, Geoffrey K[eith]. (1983), “Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t”, in Language[1], volume 59, number 3, archived from the original on 21 October 2020, pages 502–513
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English contractions
- English terms suffixed with -n't
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɒzənt
- Rhymes:English/ɒzənt/2 syllables
- Rhymes:English/ʌzənt
- Rhymes:English/ʌzənt/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English negative polarity items
- English auxiliary verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English auxiliary verb forms