Might've

How to spell might've

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce might've

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does might've mean?

1. verbA contraction of 'might have', expressing a past possibility that may or may not have happened.

Might've in a sentence

• With a little more notice, she might've finished the report on time.

• We might've caught the earlier train if the taxi had arrived sooner.

Where does might've come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a spoken contraction of 'might have'. The first part, 'might', descends from Old English 'miht' or 'meaht', the past tense of the verb 'magan', meaning 'to be able' or 'to have the power to'; the same ancestor gives us the noun 'might' for strength. Over centuries 'might' settled into its role as a modal expressing possibility. The '-'ve' is simply a clipped, unstressed pronunciation of 'have', written with an apostrophe to mark the dropped letters. The contraction became common in informal writing during the modern era as people transcribed everyday speech. The notorious spelling trap is that 'might've' sounds almost identical to the ungrammatical 'might of', so writers must remember that the hidden word is the verb 'have', never the preposition 'of'.

How the word is built

• might (modal verb, past form of 'may')
• 've (contracted form of 'have')