can

She can speak English, French, and German.

I can play football.

prouyng which eny clerk can or woel or mai make bi eny maner euydence of resoun or of Scripture, and namelich of resoun into the contrarie.

1449, Reginald Pecock, Represser of over-much weeting [blaming] of the Clergie:

If thou canst awake by four o' the clock, / I prithee call me. Sleep hath seized me wholly.

1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

(auxiliary verb, defective) To know how to.

Can you remember your fifth birthday?

Animals can experience emotions.

Can you hear that?

I can feel the baby moving inside me.

Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.

2013 July–August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist:

(auxiliary verb, defective) To be able to.

You can go outside and play when you're finished with your homework.

Can I use your pen?

(modal auxiliary verb, defective, informal) May; to be permitted or enabled to.

Can it be Friday already?

Teenagers can really try their parents' patience.

The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite.[…]Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?

1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

Teenagers can be so cruel, and nicknames cut deep.

2009, Annette Sym, Simply Too Good to be True, Greenleaf Book Group, →ISBN, page 4:

(modal auxiliary verb, defective) To have the potential to; to be possible for (someone or something) to.

Can you please come over here?

Can we try that scene again?

(modal auxiliary verb, defective, informal) Used to form requests, typically polite.

ca.1360-1387, William Langland, Piers Plowman
I can rimes of Robin Hood.

ca.1360-1387, William Langland, Piers Plowman
I can no Latin, quod she.

Let the priest in surplice white, / That defunctive music can.

1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC:

Importance of Identifying Leaf: Identify Plants: If we can able to identify leaf, we can easily able to identify plants.

2011 November 29, Tai-hoon Kim, Hojjat Adeli, Carlos Ramos, Byeong-Ho Kang, Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern Recognition: International Conferences, SIP 2011, Held as Part of the Future Generation Information Technology Conference, FGIT 2011, in Conjunction with GDC 2011, Jeju Island, Korea, December 8-10, 2011. Proceedings, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 114:

Children in need of care and protection can allowed to be placed in foster care based on the orders of the CWC. The selection of the foster family is based on the family's ability, intent, capacity, and prior experience of taking care[…]

2018 February 15, Asha Bajpai, Child Rights in India: Law, Policy, and Practice, Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

It can possible to design the ruleset refreshes that allow them to subsequently run at precise interludes and these keep informed.

2020 May 22, Pardeep Kumar, Vasaki Ponnusamy, Vishal Jain, Industrial Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems: Transforming the Conventional to Digital: Transforming the Conventional to Digital, IGI Global, →ISBN, page 226:

(India, nonstandard, proscribed) To be (followed by a word like able, possible, allowed).

en-verb

can (third-person singular simple present can, present participle (by suppletion) able, simple past could, past participle (obsolete except in adjectival use) couth)

can (present singular third-person)
able (participle present suppletive)
could (past)
couth (obsolete participle past)
canne (alternative)
kin (alternative)

the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must

(the ability/inability to achieve a result is expressed with various verb complements, e.g. 得了 (-deliǎo)/不了 (-buliǎo))

-られる (-rareru) (expressed with the potential form of the verb)

From Middle English can, first and third person singular of connen, cunnen (“to be able, know how”), from Old English can(n), first and third person singular of cunnan (“to know how”), from Proto-West Germanic *kunnan, from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (whence also know). Doublet of con. See also: canny, cunning.


can

OK, sure; indicates approval or acknowledgment.

(with falling or rising-falling pitch) Used to convey reassurance.


can

I cut this wire, can? ― I’ll cut this wire, OK?

Can you go collect them or not? The shop is at Jalan Sultan. I’m not free, otherwise I’ll do it myself. Can?

1989, Eleanor Wong, Jackson on a Jaunt, or, Mistaken Identities, page 8, lines 1–3:

It feels like a cheap gimmick to attract environmentalist types, when I don’t see any concrete policies to address that. If you don’t care, then don’t pretend to care leh. If you care, then make sure you got details to back you up, can?

2020 June 29, Poh Yong Han, “A Regular Singaporean’s Guide To Each Party’s Vision For The Economy”, in ricemedia.co, archived from the original on 2024-05-23:

(interrogative) OK?; used at the end of a question when seeking approval or acknowledgment.


can

I keep a can of fuel for emergencies.

A container or vessel, especially for liquids, usually made of metal.

Soup in a can lasts for years.

A sealed metal container, cylindrical or cuboid in form, typically used to store preserved foods.

tin

Australia, Britain, and some Commonwealth nations

A container used to carry and dispense water for plants (a watering can).

(toilet):

(place with a toilet):

Shit or get off the can.

Bob's in the can. You can wait a few minutes or just leave it with me.

I didn't have anything special to do, so I went down to the can and chewed the rag with him while he was shaving.

1951, J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 35:

1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
If he was going to hide out in the can, he can just stay there & sleep in the tub.

(archaic) A chamber pot.
(US, slang) a toilet or lavatory.

Bob’s in the can. He won’t be back for a few years.

The undercover cop never liked the Monkey Man / Even back in childhood, he wanted to see him in the can

1988, The Traveling Wilburys, “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”, in The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1:

VVhen the vulgar ſort / Sit on their Ale-bench, vvith their cups and kannes, / Matters of ſtate be not their common talke, / Nor pure religion by their lips prophande.

1600, [Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, Anthony Munday, Robert Wilson], The First Part of the True and Honorable Historie, of the Life of Sir John Old-castle, the Good Lord Cobham. […], London: […] [V[alentine] S[immes]] for Thomas Pauier, […], →OCLC:

SIR ANDREW: Nay, my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up late is to be up late. / SIR TOBY: A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can.

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

Fill the cup and fill the can: / Have a rouse before the morn: / Every minute dies a man, / Every minute one is born.

1842, Alfred Tennyson, “A Vision of Sin”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 218:

(nautical) A cylindrical buoy or marker used to denote a port-side lateral mark

(slang, in the plural) An E-meter used in Scientology auditing.

[…] prosecution for selling and giving away marijuana, the evidence clearly constituted substantial proof that a package purchased by defendant contained marijuana where he requested "four cans" of marijuana to be delivered to himself and […]

1970, California. Supreme Court, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California:

(US, slang) An ounce (or sometimes, two ounces) of marijuana.

A protective cover for the fuel element in a nuclear reactor.

(vulgar, slang, Canada, US) The breasts of a woman.

kanaçe

a more or less cylindrical vessel for liquids

лейка

a container used to carry and dispense water for plants

blik

general term; not normally used for small drink cans

necesejo

non-offensive slang for toilet — see also toilet

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-can.wav

From Middle English canne, from Old English canne (“glass, container, cup, can”), from Proto-Germanic *kannǭ (“can, tankard, mug, cup”).


can

They canned air to sell as a novelty to tourists.

They spent August canning fruit and vegetables.

(transitive) To preserve by heating and sealing in a jar or can.

He canned the whole project because he thought it would fail.

My next stop is Oxford, which has also grown with the addition of new platforms to accommodate the Chiltern Railways service to London via Bicester - although, short sightedly, the planned electrification from Paddington was canned. Evidence of the volte-face can be seen along the line at places such as Radley, where mast piles are already sunk or lie discarded at the lineside.

2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, pages 67–68:

(transitive) To discard, scrap or terminate (an idea, project, etc.).

Can your gob.

Maurrant: Aw, can all that talk! You been listenin’ to them bolshevikis, that’s the trouble.

1929, Elmer Rice, Street Scene, New York City: Samuel French, Act II, page 146:

The boss canned him for speaking out.

As a result of his refusal, the employee was subsequently canned in 2015 on the basis of "professional inadequacy" and failing to embody the "party" atmosphere that the consultancy was trying to cultivate.

2022 November 25, B. Cost, “Man wins legal right to be 'boring' at work, gets $3K from company”, in New York Post, NYP Holdings, retrieved 2022-11-27:

(US, euphemistic, transitive) To fire or dismiss an employee.

I thought I had canned it, but it just missed, and I tapped in the second one for a par.

1958, Dick Mayer, How to Think and Swing Like a Golf Champion, page 186:

(golf, slang, transitive) To hole the ball.

(transitive) To cover (the fuel element in a nuclear reactor) with a protective cover.

en-verb

can (third-person singular simple present cans, present participle canning, simple past and past participle canned)

cans (present singular third-person)
canning (participle present)
canned (participle past)
canned (past)
can (infinitive)