if

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'Get over acrost on the other side of the widowed mother and say somethin' cheerful to her in French--if you know any If I know any!'

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Definitions (14)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (8)

  1. conjunction In the event that: If I were to go, I would be late.
  2. conjunction Granting that: If that is true, what should we do?
  3. conjunction On the condition that: She will play the piano only if she is paid.

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • I am so awfully anxious for you to go But if--if," said poor Miss Frost--"if you really think that the pills--I really can't call them by the other name--will do no harm, it seems almost a I tell you what I will do," said Lady Jane. —  A Modern Tomboy A Story for Girls
  • "I'll keep my word if--if--you win Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky wheels like a demon. —  The Bishop of Cottontown A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
  • He grabbed at it as if, possessing life, it were trying to escape, and with a tight grip upon it he said: "I knew she would write and I am sure she would have written sooner if--if it had been necessary Mrs. Cranceford was laughing tearfully. —  An Arkansas Planter
  • Would you not have done as much for me if--if, for instance, I had been ill, and could not pay the rent of the room? —  A Cigarette-Maker's Romance
  • He promises henceforth to say nothing more about indulgences--if, that is, his opponents will do the same; he offers to address a manifesto to the people in which he will advise them to give proper obedience to the Church and not to be estranged from her because his adversaries have been insolent and he himself harsh. —  The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12
 

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old English gif; see i- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = Scots gif, from Middle English if, ef, yef, ʒif, ʒef, North, gif, gef, from Anglo-Saxon gif = Old Saxon ef, of = OFries. gef, ief, ef, of, if = Dutch of, or, if, whether, but, = Old High German ibu, oba, ube, upa, upi, Middle High German obe, ob, op, German ob, if, whether, = Icelandic if, ef, if, = Gothic (Moesogothic) iba, ibai, whether, perhaps; with negative, niba, nibai, if not, unless, in comp. jabai (from jah, and, also, + ibai, the contraction of jah with the radical i explaining the other Teutonic forms with initial o or u), if; orig. the dative or instrumental case (‘on the condition’) of a noun represented by Old High German iba, condition, stipulation, doubt, = Icelandic if, ef, neuter, ifi, efi, masculine, doubt, hesitation, later ifa, efa, v., doubt, = Swedish jạ̈f, an exception, challenge, later jä;fva, make an exception against, challenge. The notion to which Horne Tooke gave currency, that if, Anglo-Saxon gif, was orig. the imperative of the verb give (Anglo-Saxon gifan, imperative gif), in the assumed sense of “grant, suppose,’ has no foundation in fact.
 

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/ɪf/
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