"what can you do" meaning in English

See what can you do in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|phrase|head=what can you do?}} what can you do?
  1. A rhetorical question expressing that an undesirable situation is inevitable. Related terms: it is what it is
    Sense id: en-what_can_you_do-en-phrase-zRXnVie0 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "what can you do?"
      },
      "expansion": "what can you do?",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Near-synonym: what can I say"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, Carl Frode Tiller, Encircling: Book 2:",
          "text": "I bend my head over the paper, screw up my eyes, trying to read what it says, but it's no use, I can hardly see to read now, the print's so small that I can't read much except the headlines. Oh, well, what can you do?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A rhetorical question expressing that an undesirable situation is inevitable."
      ],
      "id": "en-what_can_you_do-en-phrase-zRXnVie0",
      "links": [
        [
          "rhetorical question",
          "rhetorical question#English"
        ],
        [
          "undesirable",
          "undesirable#English"
        ],
        [
          "inevitable",
          "inevitable#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "it is what it is"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "what can you do"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "what can you do?"
      },
      "expansion": "what can you do?",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "it is what it is"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Near-synonym: what can I say"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, Carl Frode Tiller, Encircling: Book 2:",
          "text": "I bend my head over the paper, screw up my eyes, trying to read what it says, but it's no use, I can hardly see to read now, the print's so small that I can't read much except the headlines. Oh, well, what can you do?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A rhetorical question expressing that an undesirable situation is inevitable."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "rhetorical question",
          "rhetorical question#English"
        ],
        [
          "undesirable",
          "undesirable#English"
        ],
        [
          "inevitable",
          "inevitable#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "what can you do"
}

Download raw JSONL data for what can you do meaning in English (1.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (4ba5975 and 4ed51a5). 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.