Word.ws English Dictionary

tryna

/ˈtɹaɪ(ə)nə/

tryna verb: future modal indicating intent.

Verb

tryna

  1. (also, auxiliary, dialectal, slang, chiefly African-American Vernacular) Future modal indicating intent.
    • Every time I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a ho / Tryna make a sister feel low / You know all of that gots to go1993, “U.N.I.T.Y.”, in Black Reign, performed by Queen Latifah
    • You get caught in the middle, tryna dribble on my court2001, Adam F featuring MOP, “Stand Clear”

Examples of tryna in a sentence

  • Kelly’s verse outshines all the others (“I’m tryna keep it R&B/But these streets is a part of me,” he sings, ascending into falsetto); he gives the chorus a tuneful makeover too.2007 February 4, Kelefa Sanneh, “Friends, Feuds, Yelps, Sobs and a Swedish Nightingale”, in New York Times:
  • Catch me up in snowin, in my sliders and my shorts / Chicks tryna get my brotha Flips to share his thoughts2019, Stormzy, “Vossi Bop”:
  • You're beautiful, but misunderstood / So why you tryna be just like the neighborhood?2019, Amanda Koci, Henry Walter, Charlie Puth, Maria Smith, Victor Thellm Gigi Grombacher, Roland Spreckle, “So Am I”, performed by Ava Max:
  • Kissy face, kissy face / Sent to your phone, but / I'm tryna kiss your lips for real (uh-huh, uh-huh)2023 November 7 (date recorded), Chae Young Park [i.e., Rosé]; Bruno Mars [pseudonym; Peter Gene Hernandez] [et al.], “Apt.”, in Rosie...

All 11 example sentences with tryna

Forms of tryna

alternative formtrynna
alternative formtryinna
alternative formtry'na
alternative formtry'n'a

Origin of tryna

Elision of trying to. Chiefly AAVE, though also a natural realization of trying to in many other dialects. Cf. finna, gonna.

Words that rhyme with tryna

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tryna

What does tryna mean?
Tryna means future modal indicating intent.
How do you use tryna in a sentence?
Kelly’s verse outshines all the others (“I’m tryna keep it R&B/But these streets is a part of me,” he sings, ascending into falsetto); he gives the chorus a tuneful makeover too.
What part of speech is tryna?
Tryna is a verb.
How do you pronounce tryna?
Tryna is pronounced /ˈtɹaɪ(ə)nə/.

Words near tryna in the dictionary

  1. tryline
  2. trylines
  3. Trym
  4. tryma
  5. trymata
  6. tryna
  7. trynna
  8. Tryon
  9. Tryons
  10. tryout
  11. tryouts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tryna (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tryna.wav.

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