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can but hope

verb

Etymology

Ellipsis of can do nothing but hope or can do naught but hope.

Definitions

  1. To be unable to do anything (about something) other than hope [with that (+ clause)

    To be unable to do anything (about something) other than hope [with that (+ clause); or (informal) with clause; or with so or (negative) not]; especially with long odds.

    • We can but hope that he returns alive.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for can but hope. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA