HOW TO PRONOUNCE
would
/wʊd/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 1:05
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Use the vowel in “wood.”
Use one syllable with the short vowel in good. The written l is silent, and the final consonant is d; avoid the long oo of food.
1 syllable
TRY SAYING
“I would enjoy another visit.”
APG practice sentence · CC BY-SA 4.0
CMU Pronouncing Dictionary ↗What does would mean?
verb
- Used to form the "anterior future", or "future in the past", indicating a futurity relative to a past time.
- Used to, did repeatedly, habitually; indicates an action that happened several times in the past (cannot describe continuous states, as in I used to live in London)
- Was or were determined to; indicating someone's insistence upon doing something.
More meanings (14)
verb
- Used as the auxiliary of the simple conditional modality, indicating a state or action that is conditional on another.
- Without explicit condition, or with loose or vague implied condition, indicating a hypothetical or imagined state or action.
- Suggesting conditionality or potentiality in order to express a sense of politeness, tentativeness, indirectness, hesitancy, uncertainty, etc.
- Used to express what the speaker would do in another person's situation, as a means of giving a suggestion or recommendation.
- Used to express the speaker's belief or assumption.
- Could naturally be expected to (given the situation, the tendencies of someone's character etc.).
- Used interrogatively to express a polite request; are (you) willing to …?
- (archaic) Wanted to.
- (archaic) Used with ellipsis of the infinitive verb, or postponement to a relative clause, in various senses.
- (obsolete) Wished, desired (something).
- (archaic) Might wish (+ verb in past subjunctive); often used in the first person (with or without that) in the sense of "if only".
- (archaic) Might desire; wish (something).
noun
- Something that would happen, or would be the case, under different circumstances; a potentiality.
interjection
- (slang) Ellipsis of I would, used to denote that the speaker finds another person sexually attractive.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/wʊd/
Pronunciation used in the listening tip.
CMU Pronouncing Dictionary ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
So the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would, till it glided gently in among the waving rushes.
It was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made of an underground house in the same circumstances.
More book examples (3)
And were it not that I must speak unto you concerning a grosser crime, my heart would rejoice exceedingly because of you.
She would soon begin, not only to lose confidence in her neighbors, but also to feel a disposition equally unfavorable to them.
I would crawl into this bag, and there sleep on the cold, damp, clay floor, with my head in and feet out.