"woulda, coulda, shoulda" meaning in English

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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1995 November 17, A. M. Rosenthal, “The Great Botch-Up”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-06-16",
          "text": "President Clinton . . . had his clear shot at health-care reform, if we need it, he and his wife, but they blew it. As Mrs. Clinton might say, woulda coulda shoulda.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 February 21, Mike Rowbottom, “Retirement talk works wonders for Dorfmeister”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2015-06-16",
          "text": "Rahlves described the team's overall skiing performance here as, \"woulda, shoulda, coulda—all that stuff. It sucks—we definitely came up very short.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 July 7, David Van Biema, Tim McGirk, “Was Jesus' Resurrection a Sequel?”, in Time, retrieved 2015-06-16",
          "text": "[S]uch a contentious reading of the 87-line tablet depends on creative interpretation of a smudged passage, making it the latest entry in the woulda/coulda/shoulda category of possible New Testament artifacts.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 December 18, Doug Smith, “Three things to ponder from easy Raptors win”, in Toronto Star, Canada, retrieved 2015-06-18",
          "text": "[H]e was talking about last night’s game and what it would have meant to have this roster last spring. . . .\n“Shoulda, coulda, woulda” he started. “If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas, right?”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An expression of dismissiveness or disappointment concerning a statement, question, explanation, course of action, or occurrence involving hypothetical possibilities, uncertain facts, or missed opportunities.'New York Times, May 15, 1994): \"The order of words in this delicious morsel of dialect varies with the user. . . . In this rhyming compound, a triple elision does the hat trick: although each elision expresses something different, when taken together, the trio conveys a unified meaning. Shoulda, short for should have (and not should of, which lexies call a variant but I call a mistake), carries a sense of correctness or obligation; coulda implies a possibility, and woulda denotes conditional certainty, an oxymoron: the stated intent to have taken an action if only something had not intervened. . . . Taken together, the term means 'Spare me the useless excuses.'\" (This stems from expressing that someone could have, would have and/or should have done something)"
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          "disappointment",
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          "hypothetical",
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          "possibilities",
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          "uncertain",
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          "fact",
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          "missed",
          "missed#English"
        ],
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          "opportunities",
          "opportunity#English"
        ],
        [
          "could have",
          "could've"
        ],
        [
          "would have",
          "would've"
        ],
        [
          "should have",
          "should've"
        ]
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      "related": [
        {
          "word": "could have, would have, should have"
        },
        {
          "word": "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"
        },
        {
          "word": "too little, too late"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "shoulda, coulda, woulda"
        },
        {
          "word": "shoulda, woulda, coulda"
        },
        {
          "word": "woulda, shoulda, coulda"
        },
        {
          "word": "coulda, shoulda, woulda"
        },
        {
          "word": "coulda, woulda, shoulda"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
          "word": "as is verbrande turf"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
          "word": "yavéka (il n’y avait qu’à)"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
          "word": "yfalé (il fallait)"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
          "word": "hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
          "word": "otro gallo cantaría"
        }
      ]
    }
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  "word": "woulda, coulda, shoulda"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "could have, would have, should have"
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    {
      "word": "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"
    },
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          "ref": "1995 November 17, A. M. Rosenthal, “The Great Botch-Up”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-06-16",
          "text": "President Clinton . . . had his clear shot at health-care reform, if we need it, he and his wife, but they blew it. As Mrs. Clinton might say, woulda coulda shoulda.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 February 21, Mike Rowbottom, “Retirement talk works wonders for Dorfmeister”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2015-06-16",
          "text": "Rahlves described the team's overall skiing performance here as, \"woulda, shoulda, coulda—all that stuff. It sucks—we definitely came up very short.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 July 7, David Van Biema, Tim McGirk, “Was Jesus' Resurrection a Sequel?”, in Time, retrieved 2015-06-16",
          "text": "[S]uch a contentious reading of the 87-line tablet depends on creative interpretation of a smudged passage, making it the latest entry in the woulda/coulda/shoulda category of possible New Testament artifacts.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 December 18, Doug Smith, “Three things to ponder from easy Raptors win”, in Toronto Star, Canada, retrieved 2015-06-18",
          "text": "[H]e was talking about last night’s game and what it would have meant to have this roster last spring. . . .\n“Shoulda, coulda, woulda” he started. “If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas, right?”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An expression of dismissiveness or disappointment concerning a statement, question, explanation, course of action, or occurrence involving hypothetical possibilities, uncertain facts, or missed opportunities.'New York Times, May 15, 1994): \"The order of words in this delicious morsel of dialect varies with the user. . . . In this rhyming compound, a triple elision does the hat trick: although each elision expresses something different, when taken together, the trio conveys a unified meaning. Shoulda, short for should have (and not should of, which lexies call a variant but I call a mistake), carries a sense of correctness or obligation; coulda implies a possibility, and woulda denotes conditional certainty, an oxymoron: the stated intent to have taken an action if only something had not intervened. . . . Taken together, the term means 'Spare me the useless excuses.'\" (This stems from expressing that someone could have, would have and/or should have done something)"
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          "uncertain",
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          "fact",
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          "missed",
          "missed#English"
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          "opportunities",
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        [
          "could have",
          "could've"
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          "would have",
          "would've"
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          "should have",
          "should've"
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "shoulda, coulda, woulda"
    },
    {
      "word": "shoulda, woulda, coulda"
    },
    {
      "word": "woulda, shoulda, coulda"
    },
    {
      "word": "coulda, shoulda, woulda"
    },
    {
      "word": "coulda, woulda, shoulda"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
      "word": "as is verbrande turf"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
      "word": "yavéka (il n’y avait qu’à)"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
      "word": "yfalé (il fallait)"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
      "word": "hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "expression of dismissiveness",
      "word": "otro gallo cantaría"
    }
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  "word": "woulda, coulda, shoulda"
}