aren't
See also: arent
English
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ɑːnt/
- (US) IPA(key): /ɑːɹnt/
Audio (US) (file)
- Homophone: aunt (some non-rhotic dialects)
Verb
aren't
- are not (negative auxiliary[1])
- (colloquial) Spelling replacement of the homonym an’t, a contraction of “am not”, used e.g. in the construction aren’t I?
- 1800, Fenn, George Manville, To Win Or To Die: A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze:
- I’m a nasty-tempered dog if any one tries to take my bone away; aren’t I, my sons?
- 2008 July 1, Daren Kagasoff as Ricky Underwood, “Falling in Love”, in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, season 1, episode 1:
- Aren’t I supposed to tell you how I feel?
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Usage notes
- Aren’t as a contraction of “am not” is used most often in the question aren’t I? (= am I not?). In the non-interrogative form, the standard contraction of “I am not” is “I’m not”.
References
- Arnold M. Zwicky and Geoffrey K. Pullum, Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t, Language 59 (3), 1983, pp. 502-513
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