Answer: The contraction "could've" means "could have".
Explanation: A contraction, which is an abbreviated word, takes place when a apostrophe (') replaces one or more letters<u>. For example, "'ve" is the abbreviated version of the word "have". In that way, the contraction "could've" stands for "could have", which is a past modal used to refer to something that could have happened in the past, but it did not happen.</u> Other past modals are "should have" and "would have", whose abbreviated versions are "should've" and "would've" respectively.
