Verb

(head)

(lb) Used to indicate conditional or possible actions.

:

* Bishop Joseph Hall

The characterism of an honest man: He looks not to what he might do, but what he should.

*

*:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron;. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson

, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next;

(lb) (may) Used to indicate permission in past tense.

:

(lb) (may) Used to indicate possibility in past tense.

:

*, chapter=1

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=19 citation , passage=Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.}}

Verb

To know how to; to be able to.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Lee S. Langston, magazine=(American Scientist)

, title= The Adaptable Gas Turbine , passage=Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo'', meaning ''vortex , and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.}}

May; to be permitted or enabled to.

To be possible, usually with be .

* {{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers)

, chapter=5, title= A Cuckoo in the Nest , passage=The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite.

To know.

* ca.1360-1387 , (William Langland), (Piers Plowman)

I can rimes of Robin Hood.

* ca.1360-1387 , (William Langland), (Piers Plowman)

I can no Latin, quod she.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

Let the priest in surplice white, / That defunctive music can .