ain't
- 1Nonstandard contraction of 'are not' or 'is not', used in dialectal and casual speech.
Those tools ain't sharp enough for this job.
The road ain't safe after the storm washed it out.
Note
The widest-traveled use, born when Cockney speech extended the original 'am not' to every person. Song lyrics love it. Gilbert & Sullivan rhyme it with paint and quaint in The Mikado (1885), and Leiber and Stoller's Hound Dog (1953) pairs it with a double negative: ain't nothin' but. Outside quoted speech or deliberate color, formal writing uses isn't or aren't instead.
- 2Nonstandard contraction of 'am not', used mainly in dialectal and casual speech.
I ain't sure which road leads back to town.
I ain't the kind of person who quits halfway.
Note
The oldest use of the word: it was first recorded in 1706 meaning 'am not', and kept that meaning alone until the early nineteenth century, when Cockney speech stretched it to other persons and verbs. Standard English has no everyday contraction for 'am not', so ain't still sounds most at home in questions. Sojourner Truth's Ain't I a Woman? (1851) shows how much force that inverted question can carry.
- 3Nonstandard contraction of 'have not' or 'has not' when used as an auxiliary verb.
We ain't heard back from the landlord about the lease.
She ain't paid the bill, so the lights got shut off.
Note
What follows tells you whether it negates have. A past participle (ain't seen, ain't heard) means haven't. A noun or adjective after it points back to the 'is not' meaning. Ain't got is the most familiar pairing, as in Bob Dylan's Nettie More (2006): I ain't got time to hide.
- 4Nonstandard contraction of 'do not' or 'does not', negating an ordinary verb.
He ain't care what the neighbors think of his old truck.
It ain't matter to me which restaurant we pick.
Note
It can stand in for do as a helper too: ain't like it, ain't wanna be. The clue is the bare verb that follows, with no -ed or -en ending. Because past and present look alike after it, only context separates this from the 'didn't' meaning. Julia Blues's Parallel Pasts (2013) gives a speaker "He ain't love me." The usage belongs to particular dialects and is best kept to dialogue.
- 5Nonstandard contraction of 'did not', marking past-tense negation in casual speech.
She ain't call me back after the interview.
They ain't show up for the meeting last night.
Note
Here the contraction reaches into the past tense, and the verb after it stays in its bare form: ain't go, ain't live, ain't do. That bare verb is the signal to read it as didn't. Followed by an -ing form (ain't going), it is the present-tense "isn't" instead. Jay-Z uses it on Watch the Throne (2011). It is dialectal and nonstandard, so keep it to speech, lyrics and fictional dialogue.
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Origin
First attested in 1706 meaning "am not," "ain't" was used that way until the early 19th century, when it became a generic contraction for "are not," "is not," etc. in Cockney dialect. Popularized by representations of London Cockney in Dickens and others, it came to be banished from "correct" English; as a contraction of "have not"/"has not" it derives from the earlier form "han't."