Wiktionary
vb. Used to show there was possibility of something happening in the past, but it did not.
Usage examples of "could've".
Rosie said, her face hardening with anger that aged her ten years in an instant, "she could've been gang-raped, stabbed by some twelve-year-old punk wrecked on crack, maybe even shot dead by a carjacker in her own driveway.
He had no balls - Chas could've told his daughter that the first time he met the dumb shit.
He could've told her that choosing not to participate didn't matter one bit in the big picture.
The Dollmaker - er, the killer, whoever the fuck it was - could've had one of the rooMs.
Wallace and his sister-in-law, Joyce, were in her room, so they say, and didn't see anything but the dead woman when they ran out, though they think they heard something that could've been somebody running downstairs-the back stairs.
Knew also there was no way in hell the One-Twenty-First was going to capture the hardened installation—not after they'd been scattered by the emergency drop and left without the belt-fed plasma weapons that could've taken apart the concrete walls.
My swords and daggers could've been butter knives for all the good they would've done me against you or Yarash.
He could've followed the barbs by ear alone if he'd had to, as nonchalant as they were, but Glabrio was the real expert.
Max Cherry knocking some more as Ordell tried to think how Max could've found him, Ordell telling himself it was okay, the man was a bail bondsman, so be cool, you hear?
That could've meant they'd have been deadlined for maintenance on stand-down, but unless there'd been serious damage since the last halt Huber figured they'd all pass even rear-area inspection.
Someone as nondescript as Dugger could've used that phone booth without being noticed.
Now, you could've transferred from the Desire bus to the Elysian Fields bus, but you'd have had to skip the Cemeteries bus, and then you'd be riding right back the way you came.
He could've made additional prints, of course, but there are no enlargements in that stack that aren't accounted for among the negatives.
And Breen could've been involved, that was an angle I had to factor in.
That way, he could've put her to bed and called his family doctor.