"unable to can" meaning in English

See unable to can in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: From can't even (“to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation”), with the implication that one has lost the capacity of English due to shock. Etymology templates: {{m|en|can't even|t=to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation}} can't even (“to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation”) Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} unable to can
  1. (slang, humorous) Rendered utterly speechless or overwhelmed with a situation. Tags: humorous, slang
    Sense id: en-unable_to_can-en-phrase-9TdYJjBM Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for unable to can meaning in English (1.4kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "can't even",
        "t": "to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation"
      },
      "expansion": "can't even (“to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation”)",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From can't even (“to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation”), with the implication that one has lost the capacity of English due to shock.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "unable to can",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016 April 25, Phoebe Robinson, “The Catch Recap: A Bug's Life”, in Vulture, archived from the original on 2023-06-21",
          "text": "I literally cannot with William. I will continue to be unable to can with this fool.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Rendered utterly speechless or overwhelmed with a situation."
      ],
      "id": "en-unable_to_can-en-phrase-9TdYJjBM",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "speechless",
          "speechless#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "overwhelmed",
          "overwhelmed#Adjective"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, humorous) Rendered utterly speechless or overwhelmed with a situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unable to can"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "can't even",
        "t": "to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation"
      },
      "expansion": "can't even (“to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation”)",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From can't even (“to be unable to express one's feelings about an overwhelming situation”), with the implication that one has lost the capacity of English due to shock.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "unable to can",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016 April 25, Phoebe Robinson, “The Catch Recap: A Bug's Life”, in Vulture, archived from the original on 2023-06-21",
          "text": "I literally cannot with William. I will continue to be unable to can with this fool.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Rendered utterly speechless or overwhelmed with a situation."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "speechless",
          "speechless#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "overwhelmed",
          "overwhelmed#Adjective"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, humorous) Rendered utterly speechless or overwhelmed with a situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unable to can"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 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.