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Glite Dictionary
would have

would have

2.3
To show that something could have happened in the past but did not
  • phrasal verb
  • /wʊd hæv/
translation icon : habría
  • If you had told me earlier, I would have helped you.

Examples

  • We would have finished on time, but there was a delay.

  • She would have gone to the party if she weren't sick.

  • I would have called you.

  • They would have gone to Paris.

  • If you had studied harder, you would have passed the test.

  • Had he known about the meeting, he would have attended.

  • She would have joined us for dinner if she hadn't been busy.

How Likely

would have
2.3
could
1.6

Surface Forms

would have infinitive

Morphology

would + have

The combination of 'would' (conditional/modal) and 'have' (perfect auxiliary) provides clear compositional cues toward a hypothetical or past-perfect sense, so a learner who knows the words can infer it signals a past possibility. However, the specific counterfactual/unreal nuance and the constructional requirement of 'would have + past participle' are grammatical conventions not fully predictable from the literal meanings, making the expression only partially transparent.

Etymology

Would have shows a past chance that did not happen. Imagine a missed train: you would have caught it if you had left earlier, but that 'did not happen', so would have is used to talk about things that might have happened in the past but did not.