Word.ws English Dictionary

ifs, ands, or buts

ifs, ands, or buts noun: modifications, limitations, or addenda; qualifications of any kind; speculations about whether a particular idea or enterprise is good.

Noun

ifs, ands, or buts pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Modifications, limitations, or addenda; qualifications of any kind; speculations about whether a particular idea or enterprise is good.
    • Some of those elected on the Rebel Democratic ticket, at the opening of the war, in the interest of the traitors to the Government, professed to be "Union men, without any ifs, ands, or buts."1867, The Frankfort Commonwealth, Frankfort, Kentucky. August 30, 1867, p. 3.
    • BLANCHE. That must’ve been what happened. ¶ STANLEY. I don’t want no ifs, ands or buts! What’s all the rest of the papers?1947, Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, Dramatists Play Service, Inc. (1952), →ISBN, page 29

Forms of ifs, ands, or buts

alternative formifs, ands or buts
alternative formif's, and's, or but's

Origin of ifs, ands, or buts

Earlier as ifs and 'ans, plurals of if and 'an (or an, en, or and), dialectal for then, influenced by the conjunction an (meaning if) (See OED entry on and conj.2). Thus it meant ifs and thens. Brewer's analyzes it as ifs and ans, with the meaning ifs and ifs, and that the spelling ands is a mistake. In any case, it was later supplemented with buts.

Questions about ifs, ands, or buts

What does ifs, ands, or buts mean?
Ifs, ands, or buts means modifications, limitations, or addenda; qualifications of any kind; speculations about whether a particular idea or enterprise is good.
What part of speech is ifs, ands, or buts?
Ifs, ands, or buts is a noun.

Words near ifs, ands, or buts in the dictionary

  1. ifs
  2. ifs and ans
  3. ifs and buts
  4. ifs or buts
  5. ifs, ands or buts
  6. ifs, ands, or buts
  7. IFSC
  8. IFSMA
  9. IFSs
  10. IFSTA
  11. IFT

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ifs, ands, or buts (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-au-ifs, ands, or buts.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ifs, ands, or buts.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ifs%2C_ands%2C_or_buts. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.