How to spell would

Would Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

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¹

[ wood; unstressed wuhd ]

/ wʊd; unstressed wəd /

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See synonyms for would on Thesaurus.com

This shows grade level based on the word's complexity.

auxiliary verb

a simple past tense and past participle of will¹.

(used to express the future in past sentences): He said he would go tomorrow.

(used in place of will, to make a statement or form a question less direct or blunt): That would scarcely be fair. Would you be so kind?

(used to express repeated or habitual action in the past): We would visit Grandma every morning up at the farm.

(used to express an intention or inclination): Nutritionists would have us all eat whole grains.

(used to express an uncertainty): It would appear that he is guilty.

(used in conditional sentences to express choice or possibility): They would come if they had the fare. If the temperature were higher, the water would evaporate.

would have, (used with a past participle to express unfulfilled intention or preference): I would have saved you some but Jimmy took it all.

verb (used with object)

(used to express a wish): Would he were here!

QUIZ

WILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?

Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!

Question 1 of 7

Fill in the blank: I can’t figure out _____ gave me this gift.

Idioms about would

would like, (used to express desire): I would like to go next year.

would rather. rather (def. 9).

Origin of would

¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English would, wald(e), wold(e), wuld(e), Old English wolde, walde;see origin at will ¹

words often confused with would

See should.

WORDS THAT MAY BE CONFUSED WITH would

Words nearby would

wot, Wotan, wotcher, Wotton, Wouk, would, would-be, wouldn't, wouldn't dream of, would rather, wouldst

Other definitions for would (2 of 2)

would²

[ wohld ]

/ woʊld /

noun

weld².

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

Words related to would

authorize, decree, resolve, intend, exert, bid, enjoin, request, ordain, insist, effect, direct, command, determine, demand, order, opt, desire, elect, like

How to use would in a sentence

• But on Thursday Boxer triggered a Golden State political earthquake, announcing that she would not seek a fifth term in 2016.

  The Golden State Preps for the ‘Red Wedding’ of Senate Races|David Freedlander|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• To those who agreed with him, Bush pledged that the law against same-sex marriage would remain intact.

  Jeb Bush’s Unseen Anti-Gay Marriage Emails|Jackie Kucinich|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• It would became one of the first great mysteries in the United States of America, as it was only then 23 years old.

  New York’s Most Tragic Ghost Loves Minimalist Swedish Fashion|Nina Strochlic|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• Without it, they say, the disease would surely kill her within two years.

  Should Teens Have The Right To Die?|Brandy Zadrozny|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• Almost all of the network and cable news channels said that they would not be showing the cartoons either.

  Politicians Only Love Journalists When They're Dead|Luke O’Neil|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• "Capital, capital," his lordship would remark with great alacrity, when there was no other way of escape.

  The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I (of 3)|Charles James Wills

• Bessires was included because he would never win it at any later date, but his doglike devotion made him a priceless subordinate.

  Napoleon's Marshals|R. P. Dunn-Pattison

• You would not think it too much to set the whole province in flames so that you could have your way with this wretched child.

  St. Martin's Summer|Rafael Sabatini

• He was voluble in his declarations that they would “put the screws” to Ollie on the charge of perjury.

  The Bondboy|George W. (George Washington) Ogden

• And she would be wearing some of the jewels with the white dress—just a few, not many, of course.

  Rosemary in Search of a Father|C. N. Williamson

British Dictionary definitions for would

would

/ (wʊd, unstressed wəd) /

verb (takes an infinitive without to or an implied infinitive)

used as an auxiliary to form the past tense or subjunctive mood of will 1

(with you, he, she, it, they, or a noun as subject) used as an auxiliary to indicate willingness or desire in a polite mannerwould you help me, please?

used as an auxiliary to describe a past action as being accustomed or habitualevery day we would go for walks

I wishwould that he were here

undefined would

See should

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with would

In addition to the idioms beginning with would

• would rather
• would that

also see:

• as luck would have it
• fly on the wall, would like to be a

Also see underwouldn't.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How To Spell - Writing Center

by John Irving

International Paper asked John Irving, author of “The World According to Garp,” “The Hotel New Hampshire,” and “Setting Free the Bears,” among other novels – and once a hopelessly bad speller himself – to teach you how to improve your spelling.

Let’s begin with the bad news.

If you’re a bad speller, you probably think you always will be.   There are exceptions to every spelling rule, and the rules themselves are easy to forget.  George Bernard Shaw demonstrated how ridiculous some spelling rules are.  By following the rules, he said, we could spell fish this way:  ghoti.  The “f” as is sounds in enough, the “i” as it sounds in women, and the “sh” as it sound in fiction.

With such rules to follow, no one should feel stupid for being a bad speller.  But there are ways to improve.  Start by acknowledging the mess that English spelling is in – but have sympathy:  English spelling changed with foreign influences.  Chaucer wrote “gesse” but “guess” imported earlier by the Norman invaders, finally replaced it.  Most early printers in

England came from Holland; they brought “ghost” and “gherkin” with them. If you’d like to intimidate yourself – and remain a bad speller forever – just try to remember the 13 different ways the sound “sh” can be written:

shoe               suspicion
sugar              nauseous
ocean             conscious
issue              chaperone
nation             mansion
schist              fuchsia
pshaw

Now the good news

The good news is that 90 percent of all writing consists of 1,000 basic words.   There is, also, a method to most English spelling and a great number of how-to-spell books.  Remarkably, all these books propose learning the same rules!  Not surprisingly, most of these books are humorless.

Just keep this in mind: If you’re familiar with the words you use, you’ll probably spell them correctly – and you shouldn’t be writing words you’re unfamiliar with anyway.  USE a word – out loud, and more than once – before you try writing it, and make sure (with a new word) that you know what it means before you use it. This means you’ll have to look it up in a dictionary, where you’ll not only learn what it means, but you’ll see how it’s spelled. Choose a dictionary you enjoy browsing in, and guard it as you would a diary.  You wouldn’t lend a diary, would you?

“Love your dictionary.”

A tip on looking it up

Beside every word I look up in my dictionary, I make a mark.  Beside every word I look up more than once, I write a note to myself – about WHY I looked it up.   I have looked up “strictly” 14 times since 1964.  I prefer to spell it with a k – as in “stricktly.”  I have looked up “ubiquitous” a dozen times.  I can’t remember what it means.

Another good way to use your dictionary:  When you have to look up a word, for any reason, learn – and learn to spell – a new word at the same time.  It can be any useful word on the same page as the work you looked up.  Put the date beside this new word and see how quickly, or in what way, you forget it.  Eventually, you’ll learn it.

Almost as important as knowing what a word means (in order to spell it) is knowing how it’s pronounced.  It’s government, not government.  It’s February, not Febuary.  And if you know that anti- means against, you should know how to spell antidote and antibiotic and antifreeze.  If you know that ante- means before, you shouldn’t have trouble spelling antechamber or antecedent.

Some rules, exceptions, and two tricks

I don’t have room to touch on all the rules here.   It would take a book to do that.  But I can share a few that help me most:

What about –ary or –ery?  When a word has a primary syllable and a secondary accent on the next-to-last syllable (sec’re-tar’y), it usually ends in –ary.  Only six important words like this end in –ery:

cemetery       monastery

millinery        confectionery

distillery        stationery

Here’s another easy rule.  Only four words end in –efy.  Most people misspell them-with –ify, which is usually correct.  Just memorize these, too, and use –ify for all the rest.

stupefy          putrefy

liquefy           rarefy

As a former bad speller, I have learned a few valuable tricks.  Any good how-to-spell book will teach you more than these two, but these two are my favorites.  Of the 800,000 words in the English language, the most frequently misspelled is alright; just remember that alright is all wrong.  You wouldn’t write alwrong, would you?  That’s how you know you should write all right.

The other trick is for the truly worst spellers.  I mean those of you who spell so badly that you can’t get close enough to the right way to spell a word in order to even FIND it in the dictionary.  The word you’re looking for is there, of course, but you won’t find it the way you’re trying to spell it.  What to do is look up a synonym – another word that means the same thing.  Chances are good that you’ll find the word you’re looking for under the definition of the synonym.

Demon words and bugbears

Everyone has a few demon words – they never look right, even when they’re spelled correctly.  Three of my demons are medieval, ecstasy, and rhythm.  I have learned to hate these words, but I have not learned to spell them; I have to look them up every time.

And everyone has a spelling rule that’s a bugbear – it’s either too difficult to learn or it’s impossible to remember.  My personal bugbear among the rules is the one governing whether you add –able or –ible.   I can teach it to you, but I can’t remember it myself.

You add –able to a full word: adapt, adaptable; work, workable.  You add –able to words that end in e – just remember to drop the final e:  love, lovable.  But if the word ends in two e’s like agree, you keep them both:  agreeable.

You add –ible if the base is not a full word that can stand on its own: credible, tangible, horrible, terrible.  You add –ible if the root word ends in –ns: responsible.  You add –ible if the root word ends in –miss:  permissible.  You add –ible if the root word ends in a soft c (but remember to drop the final e!):  force, forcible.

Got that?  I don’t have it, and I was introduced to that rule in prep school; with that rule, I still learn one word at a time.

Poor President Jackson

You must remember that it is permissible for spelling to drive you crazy.  Spelling had this effect on Andrew Jackson, who once blew his stack while trying to write a Presidential paper.   “It’s a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!” the president cried.

When you have trouble, think of poor Andrew Jackson and know that you’re not alone.

What’s really important

And remember what’s really important about good writing is not good spelling.  If you spell badly but write well, you should hold your head up.  As the poet T.S. Eliot recommended, “Write for as large and miscellaneous an audience as possible” – and don’t be overly concerned it you can’t spell “miscellaneous.”  Also remember that you can spell correctly and write well and still be misunderstood.  Hold your head up about that, too.  As good old G.C. Lichtenberg said, “A book is a mirror:  if an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out” – whether you spell “apostle” correctly or not.

Incomprehensibilities:  “This is one of the longest English words in common use.  But don’t let the length of a word frighten you.  There’s a rule for how to spell this one and you can learn it. ”

“As if”, “as if” or “as if”: which is correct?

Homonymy among parts of speech is quite common in Russian. Pronouns can pass into the category of unions and in this case they are written together with particles. Therefore, let's figure out together how to write correctly: “how to”, “how to” or “how to”.

Read the article

• What is the correct spelling?
• The meaning of the word "as if"
  • Sample sentences
• Synonyms of the word "as if"
• Wrong spelling of the word “as if”
• Conclusion

What is the correct spelling?

In texts, the word "AS IF" can be both a conjunction and a particle. The particle "BY" is written with words separately in all cases.

Only the particles “THAT”, “OR”, “ANYTHING” can be written through a hyphen.

For example, I felt disgraced, as if bathed in tar. I felt like I was being bathed in resin.

Sometimes this word is used in the sense of an unreliable comparison "AS IF".

For example, the arrival of the authorities made a splash in the city, as if the Olympian gods had arrived.

Sometimes "HOW" we can use in the meaning of the union "TO", which complements and expands the main sentence.

For example, the armchair is so old that sitting in it, one only thinks that its legs won't give way.

Sample sentences

1. In response to a neighbor's rude statement, the girl exclaimed: “No matter how it is! Everything will be my way!”
2. We could not agree for a long time, but then we sort of compromised.
3. No matter how hard the team tried to achieve its goal, the opposing team won as a result.
4. The success of any artist, artist, musician, no matter how talented he is, depends on hard work and perseverance.

Synonyms of the word “as if”

For example, seeing how a guy behaves impudently in public, one of his friends, as if inadvertently, pushed him and shamed him. One of his friends AS if inadvertently pushed him. One of his friends JUST inadvertently pushed him and pulled him aside.

For example, when replacing the words "EXACTLY" and "TO SOMEWHERE", "UNDOUBTEDLY" and "Like" the degree of certainty changes, and hence the meaning of the sentence changes.

Wrong spelling of the word “as if”

Form-forming particle “BY” is always written separately with words. It is she who forms the conditional (subjunctive) mood.

It is not allowed to write "KAGBY" or "KAKBA" or "KAK-BY".

All other spellings (hyphenated or continuous) are incorrect, there are no options.

Conclusion

Native speakers of the Russian language should carefully treat this wealth received from their ancestors. The names of A.S. are known all over the world. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, remember with what quivering love I.S. spoke about the Russian language. Turgenev. We cannot allow such a rich and melodic language to be distorted and distorted, we must preserve this wealth and pass it on to our children and grandchildren.

the word is written together or separately according to the rules of the Russian language

Today, the rules of the Russian language are on the agenda, which will explain how the word is written: “to” or “what would”. Looking ahead, let's say that both spellings occur. And there is some intrigue here. The advice of teachers, vivid examples and a fascinating test will help you understand it

Igor Gerashchenko

Author

Elena Donetskova

Senior teacher at Home School
"Internet Lesson" in Russian;
professional experience 28 years

Alexander Bukin

Candidate of Philology;
teaching experience 8 years

Yulia Golovina

Russian language teacher
at Tetrika online school

The word, like everything around, develops from smaller to larger, from simple to complex. The word "to" was originally formed from completely heterogeneous letters that did not correspond to the final version. It all started with the particles “a” and “would”, which in the Old Slavonic language formed “anyway” - an analogue of the modern “to”: “I don’t chase someone else, if only my own was intact.”

But that's not all. There were also particles “yes” and “would”, which turned into “in order”, which is even closer to “to”: “The robber’s nest must be found and burned to the end so that no more travelers are disturbed.” The next option was the word "to", already quite similar to "to". Remember, as in the movie "Diamond Arm": "So that you live on one salary!".

The rule “to”

“To” is a subordinating conjunction, it is written together. If, when dividing into “what” and “would” and transferring or excluding the particle “would”, the meaning of the sentence changes, it should be written together. “To” is always written in one word, if it is used when expressing: a categorical command (“May you complete the task on time!”), Wishes (“I wish you won a million”), doubts (“I doubt that you won it” ).

Read also

“Something” or “something”. How to spell correctly: hyphenated or separated

One small mistake can spoil the whole impression of the text, and its author will be called illiterate. We figure out how to write correctly: “something” or “something”, and also remember the expert’s advice on how to avoid an unfortunate mistake the word "to" and is often used:

"Greatness is an incomprehensible property of the body, to hide the lack of mind " (Francois de La Rochefoucauld).

"Love is a competition between a man and a woman to bring each other as much happiness as possible" (Stendhal).