Word.ws English Dictionary

may

UK/meɪ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/mɛj/

may verb: to be strong; to have power (over).

Verb (1)

may (third-person singular simple present may, no present participle, simple past might, no past participle)

  1. (intransitive, no-past-participle, no-present-participle, obsolete) To be strong; to have power (over).
  2. (auxiliary, no-past-participle, no-present-participle, obsolete) To be able; can.
    • But many times[…]we give way to passions we may resist and will not.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II...
  3. (intransitive, no-past-participle, no-present-participle, poetic) To be able to go.
    • O weary night, O long and tedious night,
      Abate thy houres, shine comforts from the East,
      That I may backe to Athens by day-light […].1600, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, III.3
  4. (auxiliary, defective, modal, no-past-participle, no-present-participle) To have permission to, be allowed. Used in granting permission and in questions to make polite requests.
    • you may smoke outside
    • may I sit there?
    Synonyms:
    can, could, might
  5. (auxiliary, defective, modal, no-past-participle, no-present-participle) Expressing a present possibility; possibly.
    • he may be lying
    • Schrödinger's cat may or may not be in the box.
    Synonyms:
    could, might
  6. (auxiliary, defective, modal, no-past-participle, no-present-participle) Expressing a disjunctive or contrastive relation between indicative statements.
    • You may be my boss, but that doesn't mean you can insult me.
    • A: Sigh. I'm bummed that Stephen Hawking died. B: Well, he may have died, but he's still alive in our hearts. [This speaker does not doubt that Stephen has died; nonetheless, the verb inflection is not different.]
    Synonyms:
    might
  7. (defective, no-past-participle, no-present-participle, present, subjunctive, chiefly solemn) Expressing a wish (with present subjunctive effect).
    • may you win; may the weather be sunny; long may your reign last
    • Let us pray that peace may soon return to our war-torn homeland.
    Synonyms:
    might
  8. (auxiliary, defective, modal, no-past-participle, no-present-participle) Used in modesty, courtesy, or concession, or to soften a question or remark.
    • How old may Phillis be, you ask, / Whose Beauty thus all Hearts engages.1744 [1720], Matthew Prior, “Phillis's age”, in Joe Miller's Jests, 7th edition

Noun (1)

may (uncountable)

  1. The hawthorn bush or its blossoms.
    • The fire from Lindfield was coming down the grassy hillside to the right between the hedges of may.1973, Patsy Adam Smith, The Barcoo Salute, Adelaide: Rigby, page 43

Verb (2)

may (third-person singular simple present mays, present participle maying, simple past and past participle mayed)

  1. (intransitive, poetic) To gather may, or flowers in general.
    • Soo it befelle in the moneth of May / quene Gueneuer called vnto her knyȝtes of the table round / and she gafe them warnynge that erly vpon the morowe she wold ryde on mayeng in to woodes & feldes besyde westmynstre.
    • "So it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster."1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur Book XIX, Chapter i leaf 386v
  2. (intransitive, poetic) To celebrate May Day.

Noun (2)

may (plural mays)

  1. (archaic) A maiden.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: May

May (countable and uncountable, plural Mays)

  1. The fifth month of the Gregorian calendar, following April and preceding June.
    • Holonyms: calendar year; year
    • All in the merry month of May, / When green leaves they was springing, / This young man on his death-bed lay, / For the love of Barbara Allen.Before 1789, "Bonny Barbara Allen," traditional ballad, collected in Francis James Child and George Lyman Kittridge (1886), The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. II, part II, p. 277
    Synonyms:
    Fifth Month
  2. A female given name, usually pet name for Mary and Margaret, reinforced by the month and plant meaning.
    • […] I will not send Owen's Lily May to the almshouse." "Lily―what?" demanded Mrs. Morley rather sharply, for she was half provoked with what she mentally called Amy's whim of keeping the outcast child when she might send it to the asylum. "Lily May," said Amy, smiling. "Her name is Mary, and we...1856, E. D. E. N. Southworth, The Widow's Son, T. B. Peterson, published 1867, page 210
    • Their parents named them June and May because their birthdays occurred in those months. […] May was like the time of year in which she had been born, changeable, chilly and warm by turns, sullen yet able to know and show loveliness that couldn't last.1982, Ruth Rendell, The Fever Tree and Other Stories, Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 119
  3. A surname from Middle English.
    1. Theresa May, former British prime minister.
  4. A former settlement in Amador County, California.
  5. An unincorporated community in Lemhi County, Idaho.
  6. An unincorporated community in McDonald County, Missouri.
  7. A small town in Harper County, Oklahoma.
  8. An unincorporated community in Brown County, Texas.
  9. An unincorporated community in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.
  10. A number of townships in the United States, listed under May Township.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: May

May (plural Mays)

  1. A surname.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: MAY

MAY

  1. Alternative letter-case form of May.

may meaning in Tagalog, Arabic, Malay and Indonesian

may in Tagalog

have permission to
maaari, puwede
possibly, but not certainly
maaari, puwede

may in Arabic

have permission to
اِسْتَطَاعَ istaṭāʕa

may in Malay

have permission to
boleh
possibly, but not certainly
mungkin, boleh jadi
subjunctive
semoga, selamat

may in Indonesian

have permission to
boleh, dapat, bisa
possibly, but not certainly
mungkin, barangkali, bisa jadi, bisa saja
More languagesFewer languages
may in Persian
توانستن tavânestan, شایَد šâyad
may in Thai
อาจ àat
may in Vietnamese
được phép, có lẽ

Examples of may in a sentence

  • May we request that patrons kindly take their seats.
  • Sam may be intelligent, but he isn't wise. [This speaker does not know with certainty whether Sam is intelligent, but the speaker allows the possibility.]
  • A female crocodile may lay up to forty eggs. [Typical occurrence.]
  • Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive.2013 July 6, “The rise of smart beta”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8843, page 68:
  • May I never miss the thrill of being near you1984, “No More Lonely Nights”, performed by Paul McCartney:
  • In valleys green and still / Where lovers wander maying1922, A. E. Housman, Last Poems, VII, lines 1-2:

All 40 example sentences with may

Synonyms of may

Forms of may

Verb
third-person singular presentmay
pastmight
alternative formmaye
third-person singular presentmays
present participlemaying
past participlemayed
pastmayed
Noun
pluralmays
Proper noun
pluralMays
alternative abbreviationMa
alternative formMae

Past tense of may: might

Origin of may

From Middle English magen, mauen, mawe, mawen, mayen, maȝen, mouin, mow, mowen, moȝen, mugen, from Old English magan, from Proto-West Germanic *magan, from Proto-Germanic *maganą (“to be able, may”), from Proto-Indo-European *(me)mógʰe (“to be able”), from *megʰ- (“to be able”). Cognates Cognate with Scots mey (“may”), Yola ma, maa, mai, mey, mye (“may”), North Frisian mai, mei, mooge (“like to, would”), West Frisian meie (“may; to like”), Alemannic German möge (“may; can”), Bavarian megn (“to like; to want to”), Central Franconian mugge (“to like; may”), Cimbrian mögan, möng (“may”), Dutch mogen (“to be allowed; may; to like”), German and Low German mögen (“to like; would like; may”), Yiddish מעגן (megn, “may”), Danish måtte (“have to; may”), Faroese and Icelandic mega (“may; must”), Norwegian Bokmål måtta (“may; must”), Norwegian Nynorsk måtta, måtte (“may; must”), Swedish må (“may; must”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌲𐌰𐌽 (magan, “to be able, can, may”); also Irish smacht (“ordinance, regulation, rule; dominion, sway; control, discipline, restraint; fine, penalty”), Lithuanian mėgti (“to like”), Belarusian магчы́ (mahčý, “to be able”), Bulgarian мо́га (móga, “to be able”), Czech moci (“to be...

From French mai, so called because it blossoms in the month of May.

From Middle English may, maye (“woman, maid, girl, virgin”), from Old English mǣġ (“kinswoman”), from Proto-West Germanic *māg, from Proto-Germanic *mēgaz (“kinsman”). Related to Old English māge, mǣġe (“kinswoman”) and Old English mǣġ (“kinsman”).

Words formed from may

Phrases with may

96 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with may

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about may

What does may mean?
May means to be strong; to have power (over).
What is may in Tagalog?
May in Tagalog is maaari, puwede. See May meaning in Tagalog.
How do you use may in a sentence?
May we request that patrons kindly take their seats.
What part of speech is may?
May can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce may?
May is pronounced /meɪ/ (UK).
What is the past tense of may?
The past tense of may is might.

Words near may in the dictionary

  1. maxx
  2. maxxed
  3. maxxes
  4. maxxing
  5. Maxy
  6. may
  7. May 35th
  8. May 7th
  9. May and December
  10. May apple
  11. May apples

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: may (page history and authors); May (page history and authors); MAY (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-May.ogg.

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