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Which one to use?Advancedmodal verbmodal verb
May wellvsMight well
'May well' expresses high probability; 'might well' expresses reasonable possibility with slightly more uncertainty.
Side-by-side comparison
May well
modal verb"May well" expresses a fairly high probability: there are good reasons to think something will happen or is true. It is more confident than a plain "may".
He may well be the best player on the team, but he needs to work on his attitude.
She studied so hard she may well get a perfect score on the exam tomorrow.
This rain may well last all weekend, the forecast looks pretty bad.
Might well
modal verb"Might well" expresses a more tentative or hypothetical possibility. "Might" already implies less certainty than "may", and "well" adds a slight extra hedge.
If you skip breakfast every day, you might well feel tired by midmorning.
It might well be faster to walk, traffic is terrible at this hour.
She might well change her mind again, she has already done it three times.
Common mistake
"May be well the case" is wrong: "well" goes between the modal and the infinitive. Correct: "may well be the case". And "may well to be" is also wrong: after modal + well comes the bare infinitive.
Trick to remember it
- •Position of "well": modal + WELL + bare infinitive.
- •"May well prove / might well become / could well turn out." Never at the end of the modal or before it.
Quick rule
- •"May well" = very probably (high probability with good reason).
- •"Might well" = could well be (reasonable possibility).
- •Structure: modal + WELL + bare infinitive.
Did you know?
The MODAL + WELL combination is what linguists call "epistemic boosting": the adverb WELL does not change the type of meaning of the modal, but increases the degree of probability it expresses. It is comparable to how "very" intensifies an adjective: "big" vs "very big." Similarly, "may" is possible, "may WELL" is quite probable. This use of WELL as a modal intensifier is specific to English, in Spanish, the equivalent intensification uses "bien puede ser que" or "muy probablemente," but the structure of inserting an intensifier between the modal and the infinitive does not exist in Spanish in the same way.
Practise what you learned
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
You _____ be right about that. I hadn't thought of it that way.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
If we leave early, we _____ arrive before the traffic gets bad.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Related word pairs
ShouldvsOught to
'Should' and 'ought to' express advice or moral obligation with virtually the same meaning; 'should' is more common.
WillvsGoing to
"Will" expresses spontaneous decisions, predictions, and promises; "going to" expresses prior plans and intentions decided in advance.
AvsAn
'A' is used before consonant sounds; 'an' is used before vowel sounds.
A lot ofvsMany
'A lot of' works for countable and uncountable; 'many' only for countable; 'much' only for uncountable.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy