"no can do" meaning in English

See no can do in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

Etymology: From Chinese Pidgin English, calquing Chinese 不能做 (bùnéng zuò, “cannot do”). Etymology templates: {{bor|en|cpi|-}} Chinese Pidgin English, {{glossary|calque|calquing}} calquing, {{calque|en|zh|-|notext=1}} Chinese, {{zh-l|不能做|cannot do|tr=bùnéng zuò}} 不能做 (bùnéng zuò, “cannot do”) Head templates: {{en-interj}} no can do
  1. (informal) I cannot do it. Tags: informal Related terms: nothing doing
    Sense id: en-no_can_do-en-intj-6u2ynm4T Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for no can do meaning in English (1.6kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "cpi",
        "3": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "Chinese Pidgin English",
      "name": "bor"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "calque",
        "2": "calquing"
      },
      "expansion": "calquing",
      "name": "glossary"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "zh",
        "3": "-",
        "notext": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "Chinese",
      "name": "calque"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "不能做",
        "2": "cannot do",
        "tr": "bùnéng zuò"
      },
      "expansion": "不能做 (bùnéng zuò, “cannot do”)",
      "name": "zh-l"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Chinese Pidgin English, calquing Chinese 不能做 (bùnéng zuò, “cannot do”).",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "no can do",
      "name": "en-interj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1981, “I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)”, in Private Eyes, performed by Hall & Oates",
          "text": "But I can't go for that, no no / No can do",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Avengers: Infinity War",
          "text": "Tony Stark: If Thanos needs all six, why don't we just stick this one down a garbage disposal?\nDoctor Strange: No can do.\nWong: We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "I cannot do it."
      ],
      "id": "en-no_can_do-en-intj-6u2ynm4T",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) I cannot do it."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "nothing doing"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "no can do"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "cpi",
        "3": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "Chinese Pidgin English",
      "name": "bor"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "calque",
        "2": "calquing"
      },
      "expansion": "calquing",
      "name": "glossary"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "zh",
        "3": "-",
        "notext": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "Chinese",
      "name": "calque"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "不能做",
        "2": "cannot do",
        "tr": "bùnéng zuò"
      },
      "expansion": "不能做 (bùnéng zuò, “cannot do”)",
      "name": "zh-l"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Chinese Pidgin English, calquing Chinese 不能做 (bùnéng zuò, “cannot do”).",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "no can do",
      "name": "en-interj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "nothing doing"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English informal terms",
        "English interjections",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms borrowed from Chinese Pidgin English",
        "English terms calqued from Chinese",
        "English terms derived from Chinese",
        "English terms derived from Chinese Pidgin English",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1981, “I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)”, in Private Eyes, performed by Hall & Oates",
          "text": "But I can't go for that, no no / No can do",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Avengers: Infinity War",
          "text": "Tony Stark: If Thanos needs all six, why don't we just stick this one down a garbage disposal?\nDoctor Strange: No can do.\nWong: We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "I cannot do it."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) I cannot do it."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "no can do"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.