shouldn't in English

IPA: /ˈʃʊdn̩t/ [UK] Audio: en-us-shouldn't.ogg [US] Forms: shall [present], should [past], shouldn't [negative] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Head templates: {{verb4|shall|should|shouldn't}} [POS TABLE]

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shall",
      "tags": [
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "should",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shouldn't",
      "tags": [
        "negative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shall",
        "2": "should",
        "3": "shouldn't"
      },
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "verb4"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "should"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Verbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I shouldn't leave my pencil lying on the floor."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The negative form of should; should not."
      ],
      "id": "simple-shouldn't-en-verb-O5sDmVT9",
      "raw_tags": [
        "modal",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈʃʊdn̩t/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-shouldn't.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "tags": [
    "auxiliary",
    "modal"
  ],
  "word": "shouldn't"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shall",
      "tags": [
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "should",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shouldn't",
      "tags": [
        "negative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shall",
        "2": "should",
        "3": "shouldn't"
      },
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "verb4"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "should"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "Intransitive verbs",
        "Modal auxiliary verbs",
        "Negative forms",
        "Verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I shouldn't leave my pencil lying on the floor."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The negative form of should; should not."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "modal",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈʃʊdn̩t/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-shouldn't.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "tags": [
    "auxiliary",
    "modal"
  ],
  "word": "shouldn't"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-15 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (074e7de and f1c2b61). 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.

"shouldn't" meaning in English

Verb