could care less

English

WOTD – 2 July 2020

Etymology

An alteration of couldn’t care less (which is first attested slightly earlier), either:

• by deliberate irony, or
• by hyponegation, perhaps influenced by forms such as “as if I could care less”, “no one could care less”, and “to know little (or nothing) and care less”.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəd kɛə ˈlɛs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kəd kɛ(ə)ɹ ˈlɛs/, /-ke(ə)ɹ-/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

Verb

could care less (past perfect could have cared less)

1. (US, nonstandard) To not care at all; to have no concern or interest; to be apathetic.

   Synonyms: couldn't care less, not give a tinker's cuss, not give a tinker's damn

   • 1967, American Cooperation, Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Cooperation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 235:

     Farmers knew that dead fish made plants go better. They could care less about why that happened. Scientists could not sleep until they found out why.

   • 1995 October 10, Thomas McGann (witness), Trademark Counterfeiting: Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, First Session on S. 1136: A Bill to Control and Prevent Commercial Counterfeiting, and for Other Purposes […] (Serial No. J-104-49), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, published 1997, →OCLC, page 33:

     We do work [...] to develop some strength and testing standards so that the industry can be assured that safe products are being produced. The person who is doing a knockoff could care less about that, and so they will just produce the product with virtually no field or laboratory testing and ship it out.

   • 1999 June 23, Christopher Shays, Subcommittee Chairman, Combating Terrorism: Role of the National Guard Response Teams: Hearing before the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations of the Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixth Congress, First Session […] (Serial No. 106-32), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 64:

     As someone who lives 30 miles away as the crow flies [...] from New York City, I could care less that New York City or New York State has a sense of jurisdiction. I would want to know whoever is most capable would be able to step in without any jurisdictional battle.

   • 2003, Donna Hill, If I Could (Dafina Books), New York, N.Y.: Kensington Publishing, →ISBN, page 58:

     Maybe it wasn't only time to move away from a job that was killing her spirit, but from people who could care less about her as a person, who saw her only as the good girl from next door, the one who would never do anything to upset anyone, who totally underestimated her.

Usage notes

• Some consider this expression erroneous because the literal meaning of this version is the opposite of the intended meaning. Others consider it acceptable because it is widespread and because omission of -n't is an instance of Jespersen’s Cycle, a linguistic process attested elsewhere in English and in other languages.

Translations

to not care at all — see couldn't care less

Further reading

• “(I, etc.) could care less, colloquial phrase.” under “care, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1888.
• “I (or he, she, etc,) could care less, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.