What does "wouldn't've" mean?

Contraction of would + not + have.

What is a synonym for "wouldn't've"?

Common synonyms include: wouldn'ta, wouldn'ta, wouldna, wouldna.

How do you pronounce "wouldn't've"?

Pronounced //ˈwʊd(ə)n(t)ə(v)//.

Wouldn't've

//ˈwʊd(ə)n(t)ə(v)// contraction, slang

contraction, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Contraction

1
Contraction of would + not + have. abbreviation, alt-of, colloquial, contraction
"Anyway, my Daddy said if you wasn’t such a coward, trying to haze that boy with a big bunch of others, you wouldn’t’ve got shot in the first place […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms

wouldn'ta wouldn'ta wouldna wouldna

Example

More examples

"Anyway, my Daddy said if you wasn’t such a coward, trying to haze that boy with a big bunch of others, you wouldn’t’ve got shot in the first place […]"

Etymology

would + -n't + -'ve

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