Word.ws English Dictionary

could care less

UK/kəd kɛə ˈlɛs//kəd kɛ(ə)ɹ ˈlɛs/

could care less verb: to not care at all; to have no concern or interest; to be apathetic.

Verb

could care less (past perfect could have cared less)

  1. (US, nonstandard, proscribed) To not care at all; to have no concern or interest; to be apathetic.
    • Farmers knew that dead fish made plants go better. They could care less about why that happened. Scientists could not sleep until they found out why.1967, American Cooperation, Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Cooperation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 235
    • We do work [...] to develop some strength and testing standards so that the industry can be assured that safe products are being produced. The person who is doing a knockoff could care less about that, and so they will just produce the product with virtually no field or laboratory testing and ship...1995 October 10, Thomas McGann (witness), Trademark Counterfeiting: Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, First Session on S. 1136: A Bill...
    Synonyms:
    couldn't care less, not give a tinker's cuss, not give a tinker's damn

Examples of could care less in a sentence

  • The person who is doing a knockoff could care less about that, and so they will just produce the product with virtually no field or laboratory testing and ship it out.1995 October 10, Thomas McGann (witness), Trademark Counterfeiting: Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate...
  • As someone who lives 30 miles away as the crow flies [...] from New York City, I could care less that New York City or New York State has a sense of jurisdiction.1999 June 23, Christopher Shays, Subcommittee Chairman, Combating Terrorism: Role of the National Guard Response Teams: Hearing before the...

Synonyms of could care less

Forms of could care less

past perfectcould have cared less

Origin of could care less

An alteration of couldn’t care less (which is first attested slightly earlier), either: * by deliberate irony, or * by hyponegation, perhaps influenced by forms such as “as if I could care less”, “no one could care less”, and “to know little (or nothing) and care less”.

Questions about could care less

What does could care less mean?
Could care less means to not care at all; to have no concern or interest; to be apathetic.
How do you use could care less in a sentence?
The person who is doing a knockoff could care less about that, and so they will just produce the product with virtually no field or laboratory testing and ship it out.
What part of speech is could care less?
Could care less is a verb.
How do you pronounce could care less?
Could care less is pronounced /kəd kɛə ˈlɛs/ (UK).
What is the past tense of could care less?
The past tense of could care less is could have cared less.

Words near could care less in the dictionary

  1. Coulby
  2. could
  3. could be written on the back of a postage stamp
  4. could but hope
  5. could care fewer
  6. could care less
  7. could do
  8. could do with
  9. could eat the arse out of a low flying duck
  10. could eat the crotch out of a low flying duck
  11. could eat the crutch from a low flying duck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: could care less (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-could care less.mp3.

Cite this entry: “could care less.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/could_care_less. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.