can – English noun declension

English noun forms of can

Noun: can
Singularcan
Pluralcans

Sample Sentences

  • I keep a can of fuel for emergencies.
  • Soup in a can lasts for years.
  • Shit or get off the can.
  • Bob's in the can. You can wait a few minutes or just leave it with me.
  • I didn't have anything special to do, so I went down to the can and chewed the rag with him while he was shaving. [1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 35:]
  • 1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
  • If he was going to hide out in the can, he can just stay there & sleep in the tub.
  • Bob’s in the can. He won’t be back for a few years.
  • The undercover cop never liked the Monkey Man / Even back in childhood, he wanted to see him in the can [1988, The Traveling Wilburys, “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”, in The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1:]
  • VVhen the vulgar ſort / Sit on their Ale-bench, vvith their cups and kannes, / Matters of ſtate be not their common talke, / Nor pure religion by their lips prophande. [1600, [Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, Anthony Munday, Robert Wilson], The First Part of the True and Honorable Historie, of the Life of Sir John Old-castle, the Good Lord Cobham. […], London: […] [V[alentine] S[immes]] for Thomas Pauier, […], →OCLC:]
  • SIR ANDREW: Nay, my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up late is to be up late. / SIR TOBY: A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can. [c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:]
  • Fill the cup and fill the can: / Have a rouse before the morn: / Every minute dies a man, / Every minute one is born. [1842, Alfred Tennyson, “A Vision of Sin”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 218:]
  • […] prosecution for selling and giving away marijuana, the evidence clearly constituted substantial proof that a package purchased by defendant contained marijuana where he requested "four cans" of marijuana to be delivered to himself and […] [1970, California. Supreme Court, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California:]

Etymology

From Middle English canne, from Old English canne (“glass, container, cup, jar”), from Proto-Germanic *kannǭ (“can, tankard, mug, cup”). See: Middle English Nouns 'canne', Old English Nouns 'canne'.

Verbs referencing "can"

German Nouns Kanne, Galician Nouns canada.