don't
English
Etymology
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.
Pronunciation
Verb
don't
- do not (negative auxiliary[1])
- 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
- “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. […] ”
- 1980, The Police, "Don't Stand So Close to Me", Zenyatta Mondatta, A&M Records:
- Don't stand, Don't stand so, Don't stand so close to me.
- 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
- 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 September 2022:
- 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.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:don't.
- (nonstandard) does not
- 1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 2, in Little Women:
- My mother knows old Mr. Laurence, but says he’s very proud and don’t like to mix with his neighbors.
- 1971, Carol King, “So Far Away”, Tapestry, Ode Records:
- I sure hope the road don’t come to own me.
- 2000, “Stan”, in Eminem (music), The Marshall Mathers LP:
- 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
- 2012, “She Don't Like the Lights”, in Justin Bieber (music), Believe:
- She don't like the flash, wanna keep us in the dark / She don't like the fame, baby when we're miles apart
- 2013, “Highway Don't Care”, in Tim McGraw (music), Two Lanes of Freedom:
- The highway don't care
- 2017, “Rico Acid”, Emily Blue (music):
- Love don't come easy, I know that it don't
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:don't.
- (African-American Vernacular) Used before an emphatic negative subject.
- Don’t nobody care.
Usage notes
In fixed expressions, especially in children's speech, this word can be used positively,[2] most particularly in the construction So don't I in response to a proud statement by the previous speaker.
Translations
do not
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Translations
Noun
don't (plural don'ts or don't's)
- Something that must not be done (usually in the phrase dos and don'ts).
- 1968, Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
- Among the don'ts he had done before he was twenty-one were peyote, alcohol, mescaline, and Methedrine.
Antonyms
Derived terms
References
- Arnold M. Zwicky and Geoffrey K. Pullum, Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t, Language 59 (3), 1983, pp. 502–513
- So Don't I
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