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Can   /kæn/  /kən/   Listen
verb
Can  v. t. & v. i.  (past & past part. could)  (The transitive use is obsolete)
1.
To know; to understand. (Obs.) "I can rimes of Robin Hood." "I can no Latin, quod she." "Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can."
2.
To be able to do; to have power or influence. (Obs.) "The will of Him who all things can." "For what, alas, can these my single arms?" "Maecaenas and Agrippa, who can most with Caesar."
3.
To be able; followed by an infinitive without to; as, I can go, but do not wish to.
Synonyms: Can but, Can not but. It is an error to use the former of these phrases where the sens requires the latter. If we say, "I can but perish if I go," "But" means only, and denotes that this is all or the worst that can happen. When the apostle Peter said. "We can not but speak of the things which we have seen and heard." he referred to a moral constraint or necessety which rested upon him and his associates; and the meaning was, We cannot help speaking, We cannot refrain from speaking. This idea of a moral necessity or constraint is of frequent occurrence, and is also expressed in the phrase, "I can not help it." Thus we say. "I can not but hope," "I can not but believe," "I can not but think," "I can not but remark," etc., in cases in which it would be an error to use the phrase can but. "Yet he could not but acknowledge to himself that there was something calculated to impress awe,... in the sudden appearances and vanishings... of the masque" "Tom felt that this was a rebuff for him, and could not but understand it as a left-handed hit at his employer."


Can  v. t.  (past & past part. canned; pres. part. canning)  To preserve by putting in sealed cans (U. S.) "Canned meats"
Canned goods, a general name for fruit, vegetables, meat, or fish, preserved in hermetically sealed cans.


Can  v.  An obs. form of began, imp. & p. p. of Begin, sometimes used in old poetry. Note: (See Gan.) "With gentle words he can faile gree."


noun
Can  n.  
1.
A drinking cup; a vessel for holding liquids. "Fill the cup and fill can, Have a rouse before the morn."
2.
A vessel or case of tinned iron or of sheet metal, of various forms, but usually cylindrical; as, a can of tomatoes; an oil can; a milk can. Note: A can may be a cylinder open at the top, as for receiving the sliver from a carding machine, or with a removable cover or stopper, as for holding tea, spices, milk, oysters, etc., or with handle and spout, as for holding oil, or hermetically sealed, in canning meats, fruits, etc. The name is also sometimes given to the small glass or earthenware jar used in canning.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Can" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Certainly. I can do that," said the boy quickly. "But I shall probably ride him pretty hard and fast. I do not think Mr. Simms will object when he ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... more reasonable than in the perusal of the authors of antiquity; of those whose works have been the delight of ages, and transmitted as the great inheritance of mankind from one generation to another: surely, no man can, without the utmost arrogance, imagine that he brings any superiority of understanding to the perusal of these books which have been preserved in the devastations of cities, and snatched up from the wreck of nations; which those who fled before barbarians ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... out of bed. "You can have your rest, the three of you," said he. "And as for me I can sit by the fire with my feet in the ashes as often as I did before." The three youths got into the three beds and when they were in them Feet-in-the-Ashes took the pot of balsam ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... nearly 81 per cent of the non-graduates have only 5 failures or less, taken in comparison with the fact that approximately one fourth of the failing graduates have 8 or more failures, argues that the number of failures alone can hardly be considered one of the larger factors in causing the dropping out. In a report concerning the working children of Cincinnati, H.T. Wooley remarks[33] that "two-thirds of our children leaving the public schools are the failures." This seems to suppose failing a large cause ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... Then, being my author, it's plain as can be That you are to blame if I'm naughty—not me. But, father, our Geste, though quite corking in places, Has too many fights and too little embraces. You've made all our lovers so frightfully slow, You ought to have married them pages ago. The books that are nicest are ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol


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