do
Meanings
- A syntactic marker.
- A syntactic marker in a question whose main verb is not another auxiliary verb or be.
- A syntactic marker in negations with the indicative and imperative moods.
- A syntactic marker for emphasis with the indicative, imperative, and subjunctive moods.
- A syntactic marker that refers back to an earlier verb and allows the speaker to avoid repeating the verb; in most dialects, not used with auxiliaries such as be, though it can be in AAVE.
- Should; ought to (especially in respect of a task to be repeated).
- Used to form the present progressive of verbs.
- To perform; to execute.
- To cause or make (someone) (do something).
- To suffice.
- To be reasonable or acceptable.
- To have (as an effect).
- A party, celebration, social function; usually of moderate size and formality.
- Clipping of hairdo.
- Something that can or should be done.
- Something that has been done.
- Ado; bustle; stir; to-do; A period of confusion or argument.
- A cheat; a swindler.
- An act of swindling; a fraud or deception.
- A homicide.
- A syllable used in solfège to represent the first and eighth tonic of a major scale.
- Abbreviation of ditto.
- The cardinal number occurring after el and before do one in a duodecimal system. Written 10, decimal value 12.
- Initialism of direct object.
- a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
- Initialism of dissolved oxygen.
- Initialism of disto-occlusal.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English don, from Old English dōn, from Proto-West Germanic *dōn, from Proto-Germanic *dōną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place, do, make”). For senses 4 and 5, compare Old Norse duga, also Northern English dow. The past tense form is from Middle English didde, dude, from Old English dyde, *diede, an unexpected development from Proto-Germanic *dedǭ/*dedē (the expected reflex would be *ded), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰédʰeh₁ti, an athematic e-reduplicated verb of the same root *dʰeh₁-. The meaningless use of do in interrogative, negative, and affirmative sentences (e.g. "Do you like painting?" "Yes, I do"), existing in some form in most Germanic languages, is thought by some linguists to be one of the Brittonicisms in English, calqued from Brythonic. It is first recorded in Middle English, where it may have marked the perfective aspect, though in some cases the meaning seems to be imperfective. In Early Modern English, any meaning in such contexts was lost, making it a dummy auxiliary, and soon thereafter its use became mandatory in most questions and negations. Doublets include deed, deem, and -dom, but not deal. Other cognates include, via Latin, English feast, festival, fair (“celebration”), via Greek, English theo-, theme, thesis, and Sanskrit दधाति (dadhāti, “to put”), धातृ (dhātṛ, “creator”) and धातु (dhātu, “layer, element, root”).