Won't

How to spell won't

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce won't

What does won't mean?

1. verbContraction of 'will not', used to express refusal or a future negative.

Won't in a sentence

• The printer won't turn on no matter which button she presses.

• He insists he won't pay the late fee without a proper explanation.

Where does won't come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a contraction of 'will not', and its odd spelling has a genuinely old explanation. In Middle English the verb 'will' had variant forms, including 'wol' and 'wonnot', and the negative often came out as 'wynnot' or 'wonnot' rather than the expected 'willnot'. When the contraction settled in the 1600s, it preserved that older 'wo-' vowel rather than the 'wi-' of 'will', which is why we write 'won't' and not 'willn't'. The apostrophe stands in for the missing letters of 'not', exactly as it does in 'don't' and 'can't'. The root verb 'will' itself comes from the Old English 'willan', meaning 'to wish or intend', so 'won't' literally carries the sense of 'does not intend to'. The spelling trap is twofold: the apostrophe is easy to drop, and 'won't' is then indistinguishable from the unrelated word 'wont', meaning 'accustomed'.

How the word is built

• wo- (reduced form of 'will')
• n't (contracted 'not')