don't
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: dōnt
ipa: /dəʊnt/
ipa: [dəʊ̯nt̚]
ipa: /doʊnt/
ipa: [dõʊ̯̃(ʔ)t̚]
ipa: [doʊ̯n]
ipa: [dõʔ]
ipa: /don(ʔ)/
ipa: [doːnt]
ipa: [dʊnt]
rhymes: -əʊnt
Forms: form: do n't
Etymology: From do + -n't.
Depending on dialect, its use in the third-person singular may be from elision (in these dialects "does" is used when not in the negative) or from not using -s to mark the third-person singular at all.
Senses: examples: text: I find mom rather bossy today, don't you?
text: 'Can I leave?' 'Don't''''.
text: Don't be such a nuisance! For Christ's sake, do be quiet already!.
text: Far be 't from lust; such wildfire ne'er / Shall dare to lurk or kindle here; / Diviner flames shall in our fancies roll, / Which do n't depress / To earthliness, / But elevate the soul.
ref: 1646, John Hall, Poems, Cambridge, page 55:
text: “I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. […]”
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: Don't stand, Don't stand so, Don't stand so close to me.
ref: 1980, The Police, "Don't Stand So Close to Me", Zenyatta Mondatta, A&M Records
text: 1990, Dave Mustaine, "Take No Prisoners", Megadeth, Rust in Peace.
Don't ask what you can do for your country / Ask what your country can do for you
text: Scott Pelley: As Ukraine succeeds on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin is becoming embarrassed and pushed into a corner, and I wonder Mr. President what you would say to him if he is considering using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons. / Biden: Don't. Don't. Don't. It would change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.
ref: 2022 September 16, Joe Biden, quotee, 0:00 from the start, in President Biden warns Vladimir Putin not to use nuclear weapons: "Don't. Don't. Don't.", CBS News, archived from the original on 16 Sep 2022:
glosses: do not (negative auxiliary)
examples: text: Blessed are the poor in spirit, saies he. Blessed are those that mourn. He don't say, Blessed are those that rejoyce; or, Blessed are those that have the Assurance of Gods love; or, Blessed are those that are strong in Grace: No, but doest thou know a poor weak, Christian, a mourning soul like a Dove of the Valleys; saies the Lord, I blesse him.
ref: 1649, William Bridge, edited by William Greenhill, John Yates, and William Adderley, The Works of William Bridge, Sometime Fellow of Emmanuel College in Cambridg: Now Preacher of the Word of God at Yarmouth, volume 1, London: Peter Cole, page 85:
text: L. C. Baron. That don't alter the Pronunciation. It is the same Name.
ref: 1717, The Tryal of Francis Francia, for High Treason, at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey; On Tuesday Jan. 22. 1716. Perused by the Right Honourable The Lord Chief-Baron Bury: And also by The Council for His Majesty, and for the Prisoner., London: D. Midwinter, page 31:
text: My mother knows old Mr. Laurence, but says he’s very proud and don’t like to mix with his neighbors.
ref: 1868–1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter II, in Little Women: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC:
text: [Lord Chancellor] Allow me, as an old equity draftsman, to make a suggestion. The subtleties of the legal mind are equal to the emergency. The thing is really quite simple – the insertion of a single word will do it. Let it stand that every fairy shall die who don’t marry a mortal, and there you are, out of your difficulty at once!
ref: 1882, W. S. Gilbert, An entirely original fairy opera, in two acts, entitled, Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri, London: Chappell & Co, page 38:
text: I sure hope the road don’t come to own me.
ref: 1971, Carol King, “So Far Away”, Tapestry, Ode Records
text: My girlfriend's jealous 'cause I talk about you twenty-four seven / But she don't know you like I know you, Slim, no one does / She don't know what it was like for people like us growing up / You gotta call me man, I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose
ref: 2000, “Stan”, in Eminem (music), The Marshall Mathers LP:
text: She don't like the flash, wanna keep us in the dark / She don't like the fame, baby when we're miles apart
ref: 2012, “She Don't Like the Lights”, in Justin Bieber (music), Believe:
text: The highway don't care
ref: 2013, “Highway Don't Care”, in Tim McGraw (music), Two Lanes of Freedom:
text: Love don't come easy, I know that it don't
ref: 2017, “Rico Acid”, Emily Blue (music):
glosses: does not
examples: text: Don’t nobody care.
qualifier: African-American Vernacular
glosses: Used before an emphatic negative subject.
Derived terms: dildon't
don't count your chickens before they're hatched
don't drop the soap
don't feed the troll
don't hate the player, hate the game
don't knock it till you've tried it
don't let the bedbugs bite
don't let the door hit you on the way out
don't look a gift horse in the mouth
don't mention it
don't pass go
don't put all your eggs in one basket
don't shit where you eat
don't shoot the messenger
hairdon't
yabba dabba don't