How do you use the word "would" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "would": This is what I would have said. It would take forever for me to explain everything.

Would Meaning

/wəd/

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

Definition

verbPast tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive.

verbPast tense of will; usually followed by a bare infinitive., Used to form the "anterior future", or "future in the past", indicating a futurity relative to a past time.

Sentence Examples

This is what I would have said.

It would take forever for me to explain everything.

I would strongly advise against going out on your own.

CEFR Practice Quiz

If I had enough money, I ____ travel around the world.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

I ____ love to go to the mountains this weekend if the weather remains sunny and very bright today.

Word Origin & History

From Old English wolde, past tense of willan, predecessor of will. The loss of /l/ in this word is probably due to weak stress, as in should and could (though in the latter, the /l/ was due to the analogy of the former two).

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"That her Lily should have been won and not worn, had been, and would be, a trouble to her for ever." — 1867, Anthony Trollope, chapter 28, in Last Chronicle of Barset:

"Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen." — 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056:

"Toure would have the decisive say though, rising high to power a header past Kenny from Aleksandar Kolarov's cross." — 2011 November 5, Phil Dawkes, “QPR 2-3 Man City”, in BBC Sport:

"No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise his man would be there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I would kindly wait." — 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46:

"When we were kids we would sit by the radio with a tape recorder on a Sunday, listening out for the chart songs we wanted to have." — 2009 March 15, “Soundtrack of my life”, in The Guardian:

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