expect
verb
Simple meaning
To consider obligatory or required.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihkspehktSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪksˈpɛkt
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
To consider obligatory or required.
Consider obligatory; request and expect
Consider reasonable or due
“I'm expecting a full explanation as to why these files were destroyed.”
To consider reasonably due.
ambitransitive
To predict or believe that something will happen
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To consider obligatory or required.
Used this way, expect 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.
More ways to use expect
- “We were expecting a visit from our relatives.”verb
- “I'm expecting a full explanation as to why these files were destroyed.”verb
- “The meteorologists are expecting rain for tomorrow.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Considered likely or probable to happen or arrive.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Belief about (or mental picture of) the future.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The sum of the values of a random variable divided by the number of values.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An expected time to live as calculated on the basis of statistical probabilities.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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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.