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can't help



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Idioms and Phrases

Also, can't help but or cannot but . Be unable to do otherwise. For example, I can't help thinking that the keys will turn up eventually , or He couldn't help but believe he would pass the entrance exam , or I cannot but applaud his efforts . The first of these phrases, can't help , is always followed by a present participle whereas the others take an infinitive. [c. 1700]
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

I can’t help but wonder what Castelveto and Evelyn, two of the patriarchs of salad orthodoxy, would make of today’s sweet salad renaissance — those jiggly, kaleidoscopic creations that, against all odds, can be as unexpectedly sophisticated as they are nostalgic.

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And I can’t help but think that if Giacomo Castelvetro and John Evelyn — those early defenders of salad purity — were handed a bowl of this, still cold from the fridge, they might pause.

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She and Luthen also share a ruthless devotion to pragmatism, although he applies that to the worthiness of strangers’ lives, whereas the good senator can’t help but sell out her loved ones.

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“I can’t help but see a corollary to how Trump thought it was so important during his first administration to keep meat fully stocked in grocery stores,” she said.

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But the dispute can’t help but hobble Boeing’s efforts to compete with the European consortium Airbus, which already has a leg up over Boeing in the China market.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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hear oneself think, can'tcan't hit the broad side of a barn