Noun: should
| Singular | should |
| Plural | shoulds |
Sample Sentences
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When the golf ball is there, the whole self-interference package — the hopes, worries, and fears; the thoughts on how-to and how-not-to; the woulds, the coulds, and the shoulds — is there too. [1996, Fred Shoemaker, Extraordinary Golf: The Art of the Possible, page 88:]
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However, we can address maladaptive shoulds by examining the differences between prior events, causes, proximate causes, and moral responsibility. [2003, Robert L. Leahy, Overcoming Resistance in Cognitive Therapy:]
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Being a list-o-maniac, I suggested we make a list of the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts." So in the darkness of hazy sleep, I began to mentally prepare mine. The first item on the "should" side was easy: a sibling for our 3-year-old daughter. [2008, Working Mother, volume 31, number 8, page 20:]
Nouns inflected like should
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English scholde, from Old English sċolde, first and third person preterite form of sċulan (“should,” “have to,” “to owe”), the ancestor of English shall. By surface analysis, shall + -ed. Cognate with German sollte, Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌿𐌻𐌳𐌰 (skulda), Swedish skulle. Related to Middle English shild and shildy.
2. The loss of /l/ in this word is probably due to weak stress, as in would and could (though in the latter, the /l/ was due to the analogy of the former two). See: Middle English Nouns '
scholde', Old English Nouns '
sċolde', Swedish Nouns '
skulle', Middle English Nouns '
shild'.