Shall

Search:

Shall

(v. i. & auxiliary.) To owe; to be under obligation for.
(v. i. & auxiliary.) To be obliged; must.
(v. i. & auxiliary.) As an auxiliary, shall indicates a duty or necessity whose obligation is derived from the person speaking; as, you shall go; he shall go; that is, I order or promise your going. It thus ordinarily expresses, in the second and third persons, a command, a threat, or a promise. If the auxillary be emphasized, the command is made more imperative, the promise or that more positive and sure. It is also employed in the language of prophecy; as, the day shall come when . . . , since a promise or threat and an authoritative prophecy nearly coincide in significance. In shall with the first person, the necessity of the action is sometimes implied as residing elsewhere than in the speaker; as, I shall suffer; we shall see; and there is always a less distinct and positive assertion of his volition than is indicated by will. I shall go implies nearly a simple futurity; more exactly, a foretelling or an expectation of my going, in which, naturally enough, a certain degree of plan or intention may be included; emphasize the shall, and the event is described as certain to occur, and the expression approximates in meaning to our emphatic I will go. In a question, the relation of speaker and source of obligation is of course transferred to the person addressed; as, you go? (answer, I shall go); he go? i. e., Do you require or promise his goin