Word.ws English Dictionary

can do with

can do with verb: to need; to want; to be in a position to benefit from.

Verb

can do with (third-person singular simple present can do with, no present participle, simple past could do with, no past participle)

  1. (no-past-participle, no-present-participle, transitive, usually) To need; to want; to be in a position to benefit from.
    • His hair was thinning and slicked back, and he could have done with a good shave.1996 March, D. William Shunn, “Celestial Mechanics.”, in Fantasy & Science Fiction, volume 90, number 3, page 109
    • A garden can do with a little mystery, which serpentine paths provide.1999 July, Jim McCausland, “Paths of discovery”, in Sunset, volume 203, number 1, page 57

Forms of can do with

third-person singular presentcan do with
pastcould do with

Questions about can do with

What does can do with mean?
Can do with means to need; to want; to be in a position to benefit from.
What part of speech is can do with?
Can do with is a verb.
What is the past tense of can do with?
The past tense of can do with is could do with.

Words near can do with in the dictionary

  1. can but hope
  2. can deposit
  3. can deposits
  4. can do
  5. can do this all day
  6. can do with
  7. can haz
  8. can hook
  9. can hooks
  10. can house
  11. can houses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: can do with (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “can do with.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/can_do_with. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.