to never know
366
3.5
- phrasal verb
:
nunca se sabe
- In life, you never know how things will turn out until you try.
- you never know what will happen
- you never know for sure
- you just never know
It just, you never know what's going to happen.
- It just, you never know what's going to happen.
- Often say you never know what's on people's minds.
- So you never know what doors are going to be opened.
- It's also risky because you never know what an artist is going to say.
- And you know, you never know what could start that type of thing.
- So it's kind of so you never know, yes.
Examples
-
But you never know what'll happen in this crazy world.
-
The trouble is, you never know what's going to be good or bad for you.
Fiction book (1991) -
Well, well, you never know unless you ask.
-
So you never know what doors are going to be opened.
-
Not right, because you never know when the next job will come up.
-
You just really never know what's going to happen next.
-
If you don't try something, you will never know if it would have worked.
Academic text (2009) -
And because it's God, Dillard wants us to realize, you just never know what you might be seeing.
Academic text (2000) -
It just, you never know what's going to happen.
-
Some distant relatives she's never met before, but you never know.
Synonyms
58
5.3
We do not yet know what will happen
9
3.3
What happens becomes clear later
9
7.0
Something very uncertain that you cannot predict
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal meanings of 'never' ('not ever') and 'know' ('be aware') give a clear base sense of inability to be certain, so learners can infer that the phrase expresses uncertainty. However, the conversational idiom 'you never know' pragmatically conveys a hopeful or open possibility ('anything could happen'), which is a conventionalized implicature not fully predictable from the parts. Because the core meaning is compositional but the pragmatic use is idiomatic, this item is best classified as partially transparent.
Etymology
Never know comes from the simple idea of a closed box or wrapped gift: you cannot see inside, so you really never know what is there. So the phrase is used to say 'you cannot be sure' or that 'anything is possible' about the future.