Must Meaning

/məst/
A1

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Listen pronunciation

verbTo do as a requirement; indicates that the sentence subject is required as an imperative or directive to execute the sentence predicate, with failure to do so resulting in a failure or negative consequence.

verbTo do with certainty; indicates that the speaker is certain that the subject will have executed the predicate.

We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.
Seeing that you're not surprised, I think you must have known.
All visitors must report to reception.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The contract says we ____ deliver the goods by Monday with no excuses.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
You ____ remember to bring your passport to the airport, otherwise you will not be able to board your international flight to London.

From Middle English moste ("must", literally, "had to", the past tense of Middle English moten (“to have to”)), from Old English mōste (“had to”), 1st & 3rd person singular past tense of mōtan (“to be allowed, be able to, have the opportunity to, be compelled to, must, may”), from Proto-Germanic *mōtaną. Cognate with Dutch moest (“had to”), German musste (“had to”), Swedish måste (“must, have to, be obliged to”). More at mote.

"Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." — 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 9:6:
""There are no musts in my life - I'm free, white, and twenty-one."" — 1932, Helen Vinson, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang:
"No sweet grape lies hidden here in the shade of its vine-leaves, No fermenting must fills and o'erflows the deep vats." — c. 1874, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ovid in Exile:
"No animal in the world is so dangerous as an elephant in must." — 1871, Charles Darwin, “Secondary Sexual Characters of Mammals”, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Part II (Sexual Selection), page 240:
"Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the 'phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? […] It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone "must". It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped." — 1936, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Shooting an Elephant”, in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays, London: Secker and Warburg, published 1950, →OCLC, pages 2–3:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
The contract says we ____ deliver the goods by Monday with no excuses.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
You ____ remember to bring your passport to the airport, otherwise you will not be able to board your international flight to London.

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