to've
/tuː.əv/contraction
to've is a contraction meaning “to have (with to as infinitive)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-O-V-E, and it appears about once in every 49 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does to've mean?
contraction
- 1
to have (with to as infinitive)
Nine o'clock. He ought to've arrived by now.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce to've?
- /tuː.əv/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is to've?
To've appears about once in every 49 million words in written English, the 217,360th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).