nothing doing

English

Pronunciation

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Interjection

nothing doing

1. (dated, idiomatic, now chiefly India) Absolutely not; definitely no.
   • 1917, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 11, in The Sheriff's Son:

     "I'll fix his clock all right."
     "Nothing doing. I won't have it."

   • 1920, Victor Appleton, chapter 1, in Tom Swift And His Undersea Search:

     "[P]erhaps you might sell them a submarine or some of your diving apparatus."
     "Nothing doing, Ned. We've got other plans."

   • 1946 November 4, “MANAGEMENT: Bundy Saves & Shares”, in Time:

     [T]he employes of Detroit's Bundy Tubing Co. wanted a raise of 18 1/2 cents an hour. Said Bundy flatly: nothing doing.

   • 2008, Preeta Samarasan, Evening is the Whole Day, →ISBN, page 255:

     [S]he'd consoled herself with a fresh plan: she'd refuse to go to her father when he came back. Nothing doing, she'd say.

Usage notes

• Also commonly used as a sum-of-parts collocation meaning "nothing that is currently occurring" or "nothing going on", as in:

• 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

  "You see, Walter," he said, "in truth this business is merely a habit with me . . . but there's nothing doing, nothing doing. . . . I hardly know where I am myself; much less where my customers are."

• 1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXIV, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC:

  There was nothing doing in the district—no mining—no milling—no productive effort—no income.

• 1922, Agatha Christie, chapter 11, in The Secret Adversary:

  I began to think that there was nothing doing, that he'd just come on the trip for his health.

• 2010, Lee Child, Persuader, →ISBN, page 58:

  There was nothing doing in the kitchen.

Synonyms

• by no means, no dice, no way, no way Jose

See also

• no can do

References

• “nothing doing”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “nothing doing” (US) / “nothing doing” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.