May
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English
Pronunciation
- AHD: mā
- SAMPA: /meI/
- IPA: /meɪ/
Auxiliary verb
may
- To have permission to. Used in granting permission and in questions to make polite requests.
- You may smoke outside.
- May I sit there?
- Possibly, but not certainly.
- He may be lying.
Usage notes
- Simple past might; no past participle; no future. For missing tenses, substitute inflected forms of be allowed to. The present tense is negated as may not, which can be contracted to mayn't, although this is old-fashioned; the simple past is negated as might not, which can be contracted to mightn't.)
- Usage of this word in the sense of possibly is considered incorrect by some speakers and writers, as it blurs the meaning of the word in the sense have permission to. These speakers and writers prefer to use the word might instead.
Synonyms
Translations
- Finnish: voida (1, 2), saada (1), saattaa (2)
- French: peut (third person) (1), peut-être, il se peut que + subjunctive (2)
- You may smoke outside - Vous pouvez fumer dehors
- May I sit there? - Puis-je m'asseoir là? or Je peux m'asseoir là? or Est-ce que je peux m'asseoir là?
- He may be lying - Peut-être il ment or Il se peut qu'il mente
- German: können
- Hungarian: lehet
- You may smoke outside - Kivul dohányozhat
- May I sit there? - Oda ülhetnék?
- He may be lying - Lehet, hogy hazudik
- Icelandic: mega
- Indonesian: boleh / dapat / bisa (1), mungkin / barangkali / bisa jadi / bisa saja (2)
- Italian: può (third person) (1), forse, può essere che + subjunctive (2)
- You may smoke outside - Potete fumare fuori
- May I sit there? - Posso sedermi là?
- He may be lying - Forse mente or Può essere che menta
- Japanese: してもいい (shitemo-ii) (1), 多分 (たぶん, tabun) (2)
- Portuguese: poder (1, 2)
- Romanian: putea
- Spanish: poder
- Swedish: få (1), kan (1,2), kanske (2)
- Tagalog: maaari, puwede
Proper noun
May
- The fifth month of the Gregorian calendar, having 31 days.
- A female given name.
- A surname.
Usage note
- (month) In this sense, May is always capitalized.
- (female name) More commonly spelled Mae in conjoined names [E.g. Lillie Mae, Katie Mae, Fannie Mae,...], and may also be spelled that way by itself.
Translations
- Albanian: maj
- Basque: maiatz
- Breton: Mae, miz Mae
- Bulgarian: май m
- Catalan: maig m
- Czech: květen m
- Dutch: mei
- Esperanto: majo
- Estonian: mai, maikuu, lehekuu
- Finnish: toukokuu
- French: mai
- Frisian: maaie, blommemoanne
- German: Mai, Wonnemond
- Hungarian: május
- Icelandic: maí
- Indonesian: mei
- Interlingua: maio
- Irish: Bealtaine
- Italian: maggio
- Japanese: 5月 (ごがつ, gogatsu)
- Lithuanian: gegužė f, also gegužis m
- Manchu: (sunja biya)
- Maori: mei
- Norwegian: mai
- Portuguese: maio
- Polish: maj
- Romanian: mai
- Romanica: maio
- Russian: май (may)
- Slovak: máj m
- Spanish: mayo
- Swedish: maj (1), Maj (2)
- Tagalog: Mayo
- Thai: พฤษภาคม
- Turkish: Mayıs
Noun
may
- The hawthorn bush or its blossoms.
Translations
- Bulgarian: глог m
- German: Weißdornblüte f
pl:may sv:may pt:may nl:May
