can

Etymology 1

verb

1. (auxiliary verb, defective) To know how to; to be able to.
   She can speak English, French, and German.
   I can play football.
   Can you remember your fifth birthday?
   prouyng which eny clerk can or woel or mai make bi eny maner euydence of resoun or of Scripture, and namelich of resoun into the contrarie. 1449, Reginald Pecock, Represser of over-much weeting [blaming] of the Clergie
   Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work. 2013 July–August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist
2. (modal auxiliary verb, defective, informal) May; to be permitted or enabled to.
   You can go outside and play when you're finished with your homework.
   Can I use your pen?
3. (modal auxiliary verb, defective) To have the potential to; be possible.
   Can it be Friday already?
   Teenagers can really try their parents' patience.
   Animals can experience emotions.
   The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite.[…]Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival? 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest
   Teenagers can be so cruel, and nicknames cut deep. 2009, Annette Sym, Simply Too Good to be True, Greenleaf Book Group, page 4
4. (auxiliary verb, defective) Used with verbs of perception.
   Can you hear that?
   I can feel the baby moving inside me.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To know.
   ca.1360-1387, William Langland, Piers Plowman I can rimes of Robin Hood.
   ca.1360-1387, William Langland, Piers Plowman I can no Latin, quod she.
6. (India, nonstandard, proscribed) To be (followed by a word like able, possible, allowed).
   Importance of Identifying Leaf: Identify Plants: If we can able to identify leaf, we can easily able to identify plants. 2011-11-29, Tai-hoon Kim, Hojjat Adeli, Carlos Ramos, Byeong-Ho Kang, Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern Recognition: International Conferences, SIP 2011, Held as Part of the Future Generation Information Technology Conference, FGIT 2011, in Conjunction with GDC 2011, Jeju Island, Korea, December 8-10, 2011. Proceedings, Springer Science & Business Media, page 114
   Children in need of care and protection can allowed to be placed in foster care based on the orders of the CWC. The selection of the foster family is based on the family's ability, intent, capacity, and prior experience of taking care[…] 2018-02-15, Asha Bajpai, Child Rights in India: Law, Policy, and Practice, Oxford University Press
   It can possible to design the ruleset refreshes that allow them to subsequently run at precise interludes and these keep informed. 2020-05-22, Pardeep Kumar, Vasaki Ponnusamy, Vishal Jain, Industrial Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems: Transforming the Conventional to Digital: Transforming the Conventional to Digital, IGI Global, page 226

Etymology 2

From Middle English canne, from Old English canne (“glass, container, cup, can”), from Proto-Germanic *kannǭ (“can, tankard, mug, cup”).

noun

1. A more or less cylindrical vessel for liquids, usually of steel or aluminium, but sometimes of plastic, and with a carrying handle over the top.
2. A container used to carry and dispense water for plants (a watering can).
3. A tin-plate canister, often cylindrical, for preserved foods such as fruit, meat, or fish.
4. (archaic) A chamber pot, now (US, slang) a toilet or lavatory.
   (toilet):
   (place with a toilet):
   Shit or get off the can.
   Bob's in the can. You can wait a few minutes or just leave it with me.
   1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure If he was going to hide out in the can, he can just stay there & sleep in the tub.
5. (US, slang) Buttocks.
6. (slang) Jail or prison.
   Bob’s in the can. He won’t be back for a few years.
   The undercover cop never liked the Monkey Man / Even back in childhood, he wanted to see him in the can 1988, The Traveling Wilburys (lyrics and music), “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”, in The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1
7. (slang, in the plural) Headphones.
8. (archaic) A drinking cup.
9. (nautical) A cube-shaped buoy or marker used to denote a port-side lateral mark
10. A chimney pot.
11. (slang, in the plural) An E-meter used in Scientology auditing.
12. (US, slang) An ounce (or sometimes, two ounces) of marijuana.
    […] prosecution for selling and giving away marijuana, the evidence clearly constituted substantial proof that a package purchased by defendant contained marijuana where he requested "four cans" of marijuana to be delivered to himself and […] 1970, California. Supreme Court, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California
13. A protective cover for the fuel element in a nuclear reactor.

verb

1. To seal in a can.
   They canned air to sell as a novelty to tourists.
2. To preserve by heating and sealing in a jar or can.
   They spent August canning fruit and vegetables.
3. To discard, scrap or terminate (an idea, project, etc.).
   He canned the whole project because he thought it would fail.
   My next stop is Oxford, which has also grown with the addition of new platforms to accommodate the Chiltern Railways service to London via Bicester - although, short sightedly, the planned electrification from Paddington was canned. Evidence of the volte-face can be seen along the line at places such as Radley, where mast piles are already sunk or lie discarded at the lineside. December 2 2020, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, pages 67–68
4. (transitive, slang) To shut up.
   Can your gob.
5. (US, euphemistic) To fire or dismiss an employee.
   The boss canned him for speaking out.
   As a result of his refusal, the employee was subsequently canned in 2015 on the basis of "professional inadequacy" and failing to embody the "party" atmosphere that the consultancy was trying to cultivate. 2022-11-25, B. Cost, “Man wins legal right to be 'boring' at work, gets $3K from company”, in New York Post, NYP Holdings, retrieved 2022-11-27
6. (golf, slang, transitive) To hole the ball.
   I thought I had canned it, but it just missed, and I tapped in the second one for a par. 1958, Dick Mayer, How to Think and Swing Like a Golf Champion, page 186
7. (transitive) To cover (the fuel element in a nuclear reactor) with a protective cover.