depends
verb
Form of depend , third-person singular of depend.
Simple meaning
Be contingent upon.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihpehndzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈpɛndz
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
third-person singular of depend
Be contingent upon (something that is elided)
third-person singular of depend
To trust; to have confidence; to rely.
third-person singular of depend
(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
third-person singular of depend
To cause to be contingent or dependent on; to set as a necessity.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Be contingent upon (something that is elided)
Used this way, depends is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.