Hadn't
verbA contraction of 'had not', used to express that something did not happen or exist before a point in the past.
How to spell hadn't
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce hadn't
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does hadn't mean?
- verbA contraction of 'had not', used to express that something did not happen or exist before a point in the past.
Hadn't in a sentence
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She realised she hadn't locked the front door before leaving.
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If we hadn't booked early, the flight would have cost far more.
Where does hadn't come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a contraction of 'had not', formed by collapsing the negative adverb 'not' onto the verb 'had'. The verb itself descends from Old English 'habban', meaning 'to hold' or 'to possess', the same root that gives us 'have'; 'had' is its past tense. The little ending '-n't' is a worn-down survival of 'not', which in turn comes from Old English 'nawiht', literally 'no thing' or 'nothing'. Such contractions became common in written English from the 1600s onward as informal speech patterns made their way onto the page. The apostrophe marks exactly where the missing letter 'o' of 'not' has dropped out, and that single apostrophe, sitting between the 'n' and the 't', is the only spelling trap worth watching.
How the word is built
- had (past tense of 'have')
- -n't (contracted form of 'not')
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