"can't but" meaning in English

See can't but in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: can't but [present, singular, third-person], couldn't but [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|can't<can't,-,couldn't,-> but}} can't but (third-person singular simple present can't but, no present participle, simple past couldn't but, no past participle)
  1. Alternative form of cannot but. Tags: alt-of, alternative, no-past-participle, no-present-participle Alternative form of: cannot but
    Sense id: en-can't_but-en-verb-s4bQGoQQ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "can't but",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "couldn't but",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "can't<can't,-,couldn't,-> but"
      },
      "expansion": "can't but (third-person singular simple present can't but, no present participle, simple past couldn't but, no past participle)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "cannot but"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "18th c, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope (later lines), Imitation of Horace, 1852, Charles Knight (collator), Half-hours with the Best Authors, Volume 4, page 188,\nBut here a grievance seems to lie, / All this is mine but till I die; / I can't but think 'twould sound more clever, / To me and to my heirs forever."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Knights of the Temple”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849, →OCLC, page 290:",
          "text": "[…] the man of letters can't but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, David W. Scott, The Disillusioned: A Story of Our Times, Fraser Books, →ISBN, page 204:",
          "text": "I'd weave through the throng — scanning for empties to return while flirting, sniffing out kids smoking grass and sharing smokes with Ivor and Carl on the door. With a name like Carl you can imagine a six-foot tall and wide bouncer, but Ivor...I couldn't but help to think of the name as belonging to a skinny Welshman getting sand kicked into his face. His name didn't do him justice — this guy was almost as big as Carl and probably faster with his fists.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of cannot but."
      ],
      "id": "en-can't_but-en-verb-s4bQGoQQ",
      "links": [
        [
          "cannot but",
          "cannot but#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative",
        "no-past-participle",
        "no-present-participle"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "can't but"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "can't but",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "couldn't but",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "can't<can't,-,couldn't,-> but"
      },
      "expansion": "can't but (third-person singular simple present can't but, no present participle, simple past couldn't but, no past participle)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "cannot but"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "18th c, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope (later lines), Imitation of Horace, 1852, Charles Knight (collator), Half-hours with the Best Authors, Volume 4, page 188,\nBut here a grievance seems to lie, / All this is mine but till I die; / I can't but think 'twould sound more clever, / To me and to my heirs forever."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Knights of the Temple”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849, →OCLC, page 290:",
          "text": "[…] the man of letters can't but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, David W. Scott, The Disillusioned: A Story of Our Times, Fraser Books, →ISBN, page 204:",
          "text": "I'd weave through the throng — scanning for empties to return while flirting, sniffing out kids smoking grass and sharing smokes with Ivor and Carl on the door. With a name like Carl you can imagine a six-foot tall and wide bouncer, but Ivor...I couldn't but help to think of the name as belonging to a skinny Welshman getting sand kicked into his face. His name didn't do him justice — this guy was almost as big as Carl and probably faster with his fists.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of cannot but."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "cannot but",
          "cannot but#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative",
        "no-past-participle",
        "no-present-participle"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "can't but"
}

Download raw JSONL data for can't but meaning in English (2.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.