"maybe" meaning in English

See maybe in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adverb

Audio: en-us-maybe.ogg [US], En-uk-maybe.ogg [UK] Forms: maybe [positive], [comparative], Superlative–
Head templates: {{adverb}} [POS TABLE]
  1. If you say that maybe something will happen or that maybe it is true, you mean there is a chance of those things.
    Sense id: simple-maybe-en-adv-yEiS5mnN
  2. You use maybe when you are not sure about something.
    Sense id: simple-maybe-en-adv-Em1nabcs
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Categories (other): Adverbs
{
  "categories": [
    {
      "kind": "other",
      "name": "Adverbs",
      "parents": [],
      "source": "w"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "maybe",
      "tags": [
        "positive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "–",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "Superlative–"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "adverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Maybe someday I'll learn how to drive."
        },
        {
          "text": "Yeah. I thought, you know, maybe if I tried again, it might work."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If you say that maybe something will happen or that maybe it is true, you mean there is a chance of those things."
      ],
      "id": "simple-maybe-en-adv-yEiS5mnN"
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Maybe you ought to look at this again."
        },
        {
          "text": "There are, uh, maybe twenty or twenty two people in the group."
        },
        {
          "text": "\"Is that the right answer?\" \"No, maybe not.\""
        },
        {
          "text": "It's good, maybe even great."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "You use maybe when you are not sure about something."
      ],
      "id": "simple-maybe-en-adv-Em1nabcs"
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-us-maybe.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-uk-maybe.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "maybe"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "Adverbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "maybe",
      "tags": [
        "positive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "–",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "Superlative–"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "adverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Maybe someday I'll learn how to drive."
        },
        {
          "text": "Yeah. I thought, you know, maybe if I tried again, it might work."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If you say that maybe something will happen or that maybe it is true, you mean there is a chance of those things."
      ]
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Maybe you ought to look at this again."
        },
        {
          "text": "There are, uh, maybe twenty or twenty two people in the group."
        },
        {
          "text": "\"Is that the right answer?\" \"No, maybe not.\""
        },
        {
          "text": "It's good, maybe even great."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "You use maybe when you are not sure about something."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-us-maybe.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-uk-maybe.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "maybe"
}

Download raw JSONL data for maybe meaning in English (1.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-10-17 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (1fa2fea and a709d4b). 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.