don't
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
Depending on dialect, its use in the third-person singular may be from elision or from not using -s to mark the third-person singular at all.
PronunciationEdit
- (UK) IPA(key): /dəʊnt/, enPR: dōnt
- (US) IPA(key): /doʊnt/, [dõʊ̯̃(ʔ)t̚], [doʊ̯n], [dõʔ]
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -əʊnt
VerbEdit
don't
- do not (negative auxiliary[1])
- 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
- “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
- (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, Eminem (music), “Stan”, in 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, Justin Bieber (music), “She Don't Like the Lights”, in 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, Tim McGraw (music), “Highway Don't Care”, in Two Lanes of Freedom:
- The highway don't care
- 2017, Emily Blue (music), “Rico Acid”:
- Love don't come easy, I know that it don't
- (African-American Vernacular) Used before an emphatic negative subject.
- Don’t nobody care.
TranslationsEdit
do not
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InterjectionEdit
don't
- Stop!, Don't touch that!
TranslationsEdit
NounEdit
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.
AntonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
- ^ Arnold M. Zwicky and Geoffrey K. Pullum, Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t, Language 59 (3), 1983, pp. 502–513