don't

verb
/dəʊnt/UK/doʊnt/US/don(ʔ)//doːnt/CA/dʌnt/

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.

  1. inherited from *dʰédʰeh₁ti
  2. inherited from *dedǭ
  3. inherited from dyde
  4. inherited from didde
  5. derived from *dʰeh₁-
  6. inherited from *dōną
  7. inherited from *dōn
  8. inherited from don
  9. inherited from don
  10. suffixed as don't — “do + n't

Definitions

  1. do not (negative auxiliary).

    • Don't you think mom's awfully busy today?
    • Don't be such a nuisance!
    • Why don't I carry those bags for you?
  2. does not.

    • L. C. Baron. That don't alter the Pronunciation. It is the same Name.
    • My mother knows old Mr. Laurence, but says he’s very proud and don’t like to mix with his neighbors.
  3. Used before an emphatic negative subject.

    • Don’t nobody care.
  4. + 3 more definitions
    1. Stop!

    2. Chiefly in dos and don'ts

      Chiefly in dos and don'ts: something that must or should not be done.

      • Among the don'ts he had done before he was twenty-one were peyote, alcohol, mescaline, and Methedrine.
      • And here’s one universal selfie don’t - if the setting is your bathroom, or any bathroom for that matter, it has no place in your Tinder lineup. Not hot.
    3. Contraction of done + it.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at don't. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01don't02negative03less04adjectives05adjective06dependent07questions

A definitional loop anchored at don't. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at don't

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA