Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Preterit of shall.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • imperative Used as an auxiliary verb, to express a conditional or contingent act or state, or as a supposition of an actual fact; also, to express moral obligation (see shall); e. g.: they should have come last week; if I should go; I should think you could go.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb auxiliary Used to form the future tense of the subjunctive mood, usually in the first person.
  • verb auxiliary Be obliged to; have an obligation to; ought to; indicates that the subject of the sentence has some obligation to execute the sentence predicate.
  • verb auxiliary Will likely (become or do something); indicates that the subject of the sentence is likely to execute the sentence predicate.
  • verb modern A variant of would.
  • noun A statement of what should be the case as opposed to what is the case.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English sceolde, preterite form of sculan ("owe", "be obliged").

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Examples

  • I only put things on there that I choose to read, not books that someone thinks I should read, or books I've agreed to review, or books I *should* read if I knew what was good for me.

    about firsts mikandra 2010

  • I only put things on there that I choose to read, not books that someone thinks I should read, or books I've agreed to review, or books I *should* read if I knew what was good for me.

    mikandra: I am a complete tragic mikandra 2010

  • I should also point out that insanely high MPG *should* correlate to low emissions, which is important in high-density areas like urban downtowns and commuter freeways.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » A 230 mpg Hybrid — and It’s a Chevrolet: 2009

  • Guess I should clarify Elizabeth... this is what I think the membership function *should* be about... not about dues and renewals.

    ISO Chief Commuity Officer 2009

  • It seems to me that if we're asking what developers want or should want, then they, like most businesses, *should* want whatever gives them minimum risk and maximum profitability.

    Third Party Beneficiaries and Other Fantastical Beasts in Virtual Worlds 2009

  • We should welcome the fact the web 2.0 widens the possibility of expression of people: expecting that, in a democracy, everybody *should* talk is just an utopia.

    Allan Jenkins' Desirable Roasted Coffee 2008

  • Any idiot can see Wooten should have been off the force post-haste, and Monegan *should* lose his job for not recognizing that.

    Troopergate... Ann Althouse 2008

  • I think the most interesting source was that of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who spills no small amount of ink moralizing that no decent Jew should ever even consider eating veal, and then sets up halachic boundaries that *should* make the production of veal prohibatively expensive to Jews, and then admits, after all that, that one could argue that as long as you observe his laundry-list of halachic requirements, you could have kosher veal.

    When is it Kosher? | Jewschool 2007

  • She's saying that homosexuals should be allowed to pursue orientation change if they want it -- not that they *should* want it, or should be encouraged to use it.

    Marcotte blames sexism for her troubles. Ann Althouse 2007

  • So are you trying to say that laws banning same sex marriage fail the rational basis test, or that a court should hold that sexual orientation *should* be a protected class, and therefore get strict scrutiny – in which case Loving would directly apply?

    New Jersey, Being Subtle « Whatever 2006

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