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# couldst

«couldst» in Mova's early modern english dictionary: **could** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### kind

archaic form

### modern equivalent

could

### part of speech

verb, past tense of can, with thou

### meaning for a pupil

Was able to, with "thou" as the subject. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/C/couldst/#m1)

### how it differs from today

No longer used; today we say "could" with "you."

### examples

- Thou only couldst have conquered Circe. (Tanglewood Tales) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/C/couldst/#x1)
- Pots of money didst thou bury but thou couldst not hide them. (Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/C/couldst/#x2)
- "O mother, mother," cried Cadmus, "couldst thou but have seen my sister before this hour!" (Tanglewood Tales) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/C/couldst/#x3)

### tests

manual 5; corpora 8 (Torah 0, tales 8, Sefer Yetzirah 0); EWT 0; ratio 0.9 (Torah alone 0.0); Wiktionary no archaic label

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «couldst» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/emode/C/couldst/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.