What's the difference between may and shall?

May


Definition:

  • (v.) An auxiliary verb qualifyng the meaning of another verb, by expressing: (a) Ability, competency, or possibility; -- now oftener expressed by can.
  • (n.) A maiden.
  • (n.) The fifth month of the year, containing thirty-one days.
  • (n.) The early part or springtime of life.
  • (n.) The flowers of the hawthorn; -- so called from their time of blossoming; also, the hawthorn.
  • (n.) The merrymaking of May Day.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The variation in thickness of the LLFL may modulate the species causing damage to the cells below it.
  • (2) These variants may serve as useful gene markers in alcohol research involving animal model studies with inbred strains in mice.
  • (3) Therefore, these findings may extend the use of platelets as neuronal models.
  • (4) Circuit weight training does not exacerbate resting or exercise blood pressure and may have beneficial effects.
  • (5) AEDs may also have differential effects on nighttime sleep.
  • (6) This may have significant consequences for people’s health.” However, Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, which funded the work, said medical journals could no longer be relied on to be unbiased.
  • (7) The results indicated that neuropsychological measures may serve to broaden the concept of intelligence and that a brain-related criterion may contribute to a fuller understanding of its nature.
  • (8) Patients with papillary carcinoma with a good cell-mediated immune response occurred with much lower infiltration of the tumor boundary with lymphocyte whereas the follicular carcinoma less cell-mediated immunity was associated with dense lymphocytic infiltration, suggesting the biological relevance of lymphocytic infiltration may be different for the two histologic variants.
  • (9) The newborn with critical AS typically presents with severe cardiac failure and the infant with moderate failure, whereas children may be asymptomatic.
  • (10) These channels may, at least in some cases, be responsible for the generation of pacemaker depolarizations, thereby regulating firing behaviour.
  • (11) Therefore, it is suggested that PE patients without endogenous erythroid colonies may follow almost the same clinical course as SP patients.
  • (12) Herpesviruses such as EBV, HSV, and human herpes virus-6 (HHV-6) have a marked tropism for cells of the immune system and therefore infection by these viruses may result in alterations of immune functions, leading at times to a state of immunosuppression.
  • (13) We attribute this in part to early diagnosis by computed tomography (CT), but a contributory factor may be earlier referrals from country centres to a paediatric trauma centre and rapid transfer, by air or road, by medical retrieval teams.
  • (14) The process of sequence rearrangement appears to be a significant part of the evolution of the genome and may have a much greater effect on the evolution of the phenotype than sequence alteration by base substitution.
  • (15) Previous attempts to purify this enzyme from the liquid endosperm of kernels of Zea mays (sweet corn) were not entirely successful owing to the lability of partially purified preparations during column chromatography.
  • (16) It is concluded that amlodipine reduces myocardial ischemic injury by mechanism(s) that may involve a reduction in myocardial oxygen demand as well as by positively influencing transmembrane Ca2+ fluxes during ischemia and reperfusion.
  • (17) It is suggested that the Japanese may have lower trabecular bone mineral density than Caucasians but may also have a lower threshold for fracture of the vertebrae.
  • (18) Down and up regulation by peptides may be useful for treatment of cough and prevention of aspiration pneumonia.
  • (19) Our data suggest that a rational use of surveillance cultures and serological tests may aid in an earlier diagnosis of FI in BMT patients.
  • (20) Open field behaviors and isolation-induced aggression were reduced by anxiolytics, at doses which may be within the sedative-hypnotic range.

Shall


Definition:

  • (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, "Shall you go?" (answer, "I shall go"); "Shall he go?" i. e., "Do you require or promise his going?" (answer, "He shall go".) The same relation is transferred to either second or third person in such phrases as "You say, or think, you shall go;" "He says, or thinks, he shall go." After a conditional conjunction (as if, whether) shall is used in all persons to express futurity simply; as, if I, you, or he shall say they are right. Should is everywhere used in the same connection and the same senses as shall, as its imperfect. It also expresses duty or moral obligation; as, he should do it whether he will or not. In the early English, and hence in our English Bible, shall is the auxiliary mainly used, in all the persons, to express simple futurity. (Cf. Will, v. t.) Shall may be used elliptically; thus, with an adverb or other word expressive of motion go may be omitted.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Before leaving New York on Wednesday, Charlie Chaplin said: “I shall probably be away for six months, but no more, for I have definite plans for my next film.
  • (2) According to the quantitative analysis between threshold titers of skin test and RAST titers using house dust and HD mites allergens, specific IgE production shall be decreased in the patients over 40 years old.
  • (3) We shall not decide the future of Britain's relationship with the EU.
  • (4) A survey shall be given on the physiological, pathophysiological and pharmacotherapeutic backgrounds of the biogenic amine 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin; 5HT), to be preceded by a few historical remarks.
  • (5) His line on white privilege is ace: “There ain’t a white man in this room that would change places with me,” he says on his DVD Bigger & Blacker , then adds gleefully, “And I’m rich!” He makes lots of films, too, but as is often the way with comedians, those are, shall we say, less gilded affairs.
  • (6) It is hoped that further biochemical studies shall confirm these groupings at a more fundamental level and eventually a system recognising the double-stranded RNA gene product relationships shall evolve.
  • (7) There may be cases in which youngsters have travelled overseas perhaps out of curiosity or with an interest but upon arriving shall we say in Turkey, through which a lot of these people are staged, get cold feet and decide they don’t want to pursue that objective.
  • (8) Within the scope of this paper I shall also attempt a brief description of the focal problems, examined, their operationalization in research methods, expected results, and a preliminary discussion of three demonstrative cases.
  • (9) In order to study the possible role of fibroblastic biological changes in periodontal disease, later on we shall compare the characteristics of normal fibroblast to those of fibroblast taken in periodontal disease.
  • (10) OK, I have a long experience in football but there are players who don’t have the [same] experience, so it shall have an influence.
  • (11) So a striker needs also a bit of luck and then the confidence is higher but he’s self-confident so I expect he shall score and maybe against Chelsea .” So far Van Persie has remained injury free, which is a fillip after previously admitting to managing persistent issues for years.
  • (12) In a 1958 debate on marriage, Robert Menzies himself that declared that the issue “closely touches the individual conscience of members”, adding that “though it will be a government measure, it shall not be treated as a party measure”.
  • (13) The surgical treatment of the chronic pancreatitis shall concerning indication to operation, tactics and kind of intervention always take into consideration an existing abuse of alcohol.
  • (14) Agreement on Japan, 11 February The leaders of the three great powers – the Soviet Union, UK and US – have agreed that after the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the allies on condition that: The status quo in Outer Mongolia shall be preserved.
  • (15) All rights reserved 'From Malta to Yalta': leaders in high spirits 1 January 1945 Prime minister to president and top secret We shall be delighted if you will come to Malta.
  • (16) Qualifying for insurance benefits requires that this activity shall have been finally given up and that the same or other hazardous activities are avoided in the future.
  • (17) So I shall break my cover and, for the first time ever, reveal this top secret dossier: “Welcome to Britain, Visitor!
  • (18) "I do not decide that skirts shall be short or long.
  • (19) We shall continue our measurements, particularly those of activity in persons, and doubtless we shall refine our estimates of collective dose, but they are unlikely to change significantly.
  • (20) More specifically I shall discuss how the distribution of the control of fluxes, concentrations and potentials, among the various enzymes (catalysts) in these systems has been measured and how this distribution can be understood in terms of the enzyme properties.

Words possibly related to "may"