Word.ws English Dictionary

cannot help but

cannot help but is the alternative form of cannot but.

Meaning of cannot but

Verb

cannot but (third-person singular simple present cannot but, no present participle, simple past could not but, no past participle)

  1. (no-past-participle, no-present-participle) To have to; to cannot help; to be unable to do otherwise than.
    • I cannot but applaud your zeal for preserving the purity of our language, both in its expressions and pronunciation, and in correcting the popular errors several of our States are continually falling into with respect to both.1789, Benjamin Franklin, “Letter to Noah Webster, December 26, 1789”, in E. Sargent, editor, The select works of Benjamin Franklin, published 1855, page 498

Forms of cannot help but

third-person singular presentcannot help but
pastcould not help but

Questions about cannot help but

What is cannot help but the alternative form of?
Cannot help but is the alternative form of cannot but.

Words near cannot help but in the dictionary

  1. Cannonsville
  2. cannot
  3. cannot away with
  4. cannot but
  5. cannot help
  6. cannot help but
  7. cannot live with them, cannot live without them
  8. cannot make it
  9. cannot-link
  10. cannots
  11. cannott

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cannot help but (page history and authors); cannot but (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: “cannot help but.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cannot_help_but. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.