DictionaryAI

shan't

verb
SHANT/ʃænt/UKSHAHNT/ʃɑːnt/

1 meaning of shan't

Practice

  1. 1
    verbarchaicCanadaIrelandNew ZealandUKabbreviationcontraction
    Contraction of shall not. Chiefly British; dated or formal in American English.

    I shan't tolerate that sort of language at the dinner table.

    We shan't reach the village before nightfall in this weather.

    Note

    A contraction whose standing depends on where you are. It is everyday colloquial English in the UK and Ireland, dated in Australia and New Zealand, and archaic in the US and Canada. It came through an older shannot, and Rex Beach's Flowing Gold (1922) still spells it sha'n't, with one apostrophe for each gap. Like shall itself, it sits most naturally with I and we, and it pairs neatly in questions: Shall I or shan't I?

Use it in a sentence

Write your own sentence with shan't, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.

Origin

A contraction of "shall not," formed from "shall" plus "-n't," historically passing through the form "shannot."