DictionaryAI

hadn't

verb
HAD-uhnt/ˈhæd.(ə.)nt/

1 meaning of hadn't

Practice

  1. 1
    verbcolloquialabbreviationcontraction
    Contraction of had not.

    By the time we arrived, the show hadn't started.

    He hadn't eaten all day and was completely exhausted.

    Note

    Had and the clipped negator -n't fused into one word, and it carries every job had does. Mostly it builds the past perfect, but it also negates had better and had to: hadn't we better apologize? offers a suggestion, and we hadn't to be late means there was no obligation, an alternative to didn't have to. In questions the whole contraction moves ahead of the subject; uncontracted, the order splits as had we not.

    Hadn't we better apologize?

    Surely we hadn't to be late.

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Origin

A contraction of "had" plus the suffix "-n't," a shortened form of "not."