"why's" meaning in English

See why's in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Contraction

Head templates: {{head|en|contraction|head=}} why's, {{en-cont}} why's
  1. Contraction of why is. Tags: abbreviation, alt-of, contraction Alternative form of: why is
    Sense id: en-why's-en-contraction-ImEoW2ep
  2. Contraction of why has. Tags: abbreviation, alt-of, contraction Alternative form of: why has
    Sense id: en-why's-en-contraction-iNTfRqSK
  3. (less common) Contraction of why does. Tags: abbreviation, alt-of, contraction, uncommon Alternative form of: why does
    Sense id: en-why's-en-contraction-8Pp5PFDw

Noun

Head templates: {{head|en|noun form}} why's
  1. Alternative spelling of whys plural of why Tags: alt-of, alternative Alternative form of: whys plural of why
    Sense id: en-why's-en-noun-7QmY5YMJ

Download JSON data for why's meaning in English (1.8kB)

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  "categories": [],
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    {
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      "expansion": "why's",
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    {
      "args": {},
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  "lang_code": "en",
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      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Why's he doing that?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Contraction of why is."
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      "id": "en-why's-en-contraction-ImEoW2ep",
      "links": [
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          "is",
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      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "contraction"
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    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "why has"
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      ],
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Why's everyone gone home?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Contraction of why has."
      ],
      "id": "en-why's-en-contraction-iNTfRqSK",
      "links": [
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      "tags": [
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    },
    {
      "alt_of": [
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          "word": "why does"
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      ],
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Why's he want to do that?"
        }
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        "Contraction of why does."
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        "(less common) Contraction of why does."
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        "contraction",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "text": "1977: I was never able to stop the search for the why's and how's of something so senseless as the arms race. (Nobel Peace Prize Alva Myrdal)"
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        {
          "text": "Why's he doing that?"
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        "Contraction of why is."
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          "why",
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      "tags": [
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          "word": "why has"
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      ],
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        "English contractions"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Why's everyone gone home?"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Contraction of why has."
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          "why",
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      ],
      "tags": [
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    {
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          "word": "why does"
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        "English contractions"
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          "text": "Why's he want to do that?"
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        "(less common) Contraction of why does."
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-01 using wiktextract (ee658f9 and be4df6b). 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.