Wasn't

//ˈwɒz.ənt// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    Contraction of was + not. abbreviation, alt-of, auxiliary, contraction

    "Yesterday, upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there / He wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away …"

Example

More examples

"I really wasn't expecting that from you."

Etymology

Contraction of was + not. By surface analysis, was + -n't.

Related phrases

Rome wasn't built in a day

More for "wasn't"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.