The phrase “can’t very well go” is an idiomatic expression in English. It’s used to express that it’s not appropriate, not possible, or not advisable to do something. Here’s a breakdown:
- Can’t: This is the contraction of “cannot”, which is used to express inability or impossibility.
- Very well: This is an adverbial phrase often used for emphasis in this context. It doesn’t mean “well” in the sense of “good” or “satisfactorily” here.
- Go: This is a verb that can mean many things depending on context. In this phrase, it’s used in a general sense to refer to doing an action or proceeding with a plan.
So, if someone says “I can’t very well go to the party without an invitation”, they mean that it wouldn’t be appropriate or possible for them to go to the party without an invitation. It’s a polite way of expressing a limitation or constraint.
A search in the iWeb corpus for:
_VM _XX very well _V
1 CAN’T VERY WELL HAVE 30
2 CAN’T VERY WELL GO 28
3 CAN’T VERY WELL BE 22
4 CANNOT VERY WELL BE 21
5 COULDN’T VERY WELL HAVE 20
6 COULD NOT VERY WELL BE 18
7 CAN’T VERY WELL DO 16
8 COULDN’T VERY WELL TELL 16
9 COULDN’T VERY WELL SAY 15
10 CAN’T VERY WELL ASK 12
11 CAN’T VERY WELL MAKE 12
12 CAN’T VERY WELL TELL 11
13 CAN’T VERY WELL USE 10
14 CAN’T VERY WELL PUT 9
15 COULD NOT VERY WELL UNDERSTAND 9
16 COULD NOT VERY WELL HAVE 9
17 CAN’T VERY WELL EXPECT 9
You can’t very well expect other people to be nice to you if you aren’t willing to lead the way.