depend
verb
Simple meaning
To trust; to have confidence.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihpehndSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈpɛnd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitiveusually followed by on or upon
To trust; to have confidence; to rely.
Be contingent upon (something that is elided)
(intransitive, followed by on or upon, formerly also by of like independent does) To be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition
transitive
To cause to be contingent or dependent on; to set as a necessity.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To trust; to have confidence; to rely.
Used this way, depend is a reasonably familiar word with a mildly favourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Positive and appreciative
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use depend
- “I depend on my alarm clock to wake me up each morning.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Worthy of reliance or trust.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Be contingent on.
Be contingent on.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A variable in a logical or mathematical expression whose value depends on the independent variable.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.