Wasn't
verbA contraction of 'was not', used to deny or negate something in the past.
How to spell wasn't
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce wasn't
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does wasn't mean?
- verbA contraction of 'was not', used to deny or negate something in the past.
Wasn't in a sentence
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The package wasn't delivered on the day they promised.
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She insisted the mistake wasn't her fault.
Where does wasn't come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a contraction of the two everyday English words 'was' and 'not'. 'Was' descends from Old English 'wæs', the past tense of 'wesan', a verb meaning 'to be' or 'to remain', which has deep Germanic roots shared with words like German 'war'. 'Not' comes from Old English 'nāwiht', literally 'no thing' or 'nothing'. The squeezed-together negative forms like 'wasn't' became common in informal speech and writing from around the seventeenth century, with the apostrophe marking the missing 'o' of 'not'. The whole spelling trap lives in that apostrophe: it stands in for the dropped letter and sits between the 'n' and the 't', never before the 'n'.
How the word is built
- was (past tense of 'be')
- n't (contracted 'not')
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