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don't

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See also: dont and dönt

English

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Etymology 1

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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.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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don't

  1. 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."‎[2], CBS News, archived from the original on 16 September 2022‎[3]:
      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.
  2. (now nonstandard) does not
    • 1649, William Bridge, edited by William Greenhill, John Yates, and William Adderley, The Works of William Bridge, Sometime Fellow of Emmanuel College in Cambridg: Now Preacher of the Word of God at Yarmouth, volume 1, London: Peter Cole, page 85:
      Blessed are the poor in spirit, saies he. Blessed are those that mourn. He don't say, Blessed are those that rejoyce; or, Blessed are those that have the Assurance of Gods love; or, Blessed are those that are strong in Grace: No, but doest thou know a poor weak, Christian, a mourning soul like a Dove of the Valleys; saies the Lord, I blesse him.
    • 1717, The Tryal of Francis Francia, for High Treason, at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey; On Tuesday Jan. 22. 1716. Perused by the Right Honourable The Lord Chief-Baron Bury: And also by The Council for His Majesty, and for the Prisoner., London: D. Midwinter, page 31:
      L. C. Baron. That don't alter the Pronunciation. It is the same Name.
    • 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.
    • 1882, W. S. Gilbert, An entirely original fairy opera, in two acts, entitled, Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri, London: Chappell & Co, page 38:
      [Lord Chancellor] Allow me, as an old equity draftsman, to make a suggestion. The subtleties of the legal mind are equal to the emergency. The thing is really quite simple – the insertion of a single word will do it. Let it stand that every fairy shall die who don’t marry a mortal, and there you are, out of your difficulty at once!
    • 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.
  3. (African-American Vernacular) Used before an emphatic negative subject.
    Don’t nobody care.
Usage notes
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  • 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.
  • The use of don't with the sense of does not seems to be attested first in the 17th century, a time when the use of do as an auxiliary in negative clauses (Do-support) was increasing. Its development may be related to the omission of the suffix -s on the verbs need and dare when used as auxiliaries in the negative. Another likely analogy was the rhyming word won't. Although now nonstandard, it seems not to have been felt as incorrect by some authors of the 18th and 19th centuries.[3] By the second half of the 19th century, however, some writers on grammar were prescribing the use of doesn't rather than don't in this context.[4] Even today, he don't tends to be more acceptable in colloquial speech than he say, he make, etc., which are clearly marked as dialectal. "Don't" is often used in place of "doesn't" in songs for meter effect, even by singers who wouldn't ordinarily do so in speech.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Interjection

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don't

  1. Stop!
Translations
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Noun

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don't (plural don'ts or don't's)

  1. Something that must not be done (usually in the phrase dos and don'ts).
Antonyms
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Derived terms
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See also

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Etymology 2

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Pronunciation

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Contraction

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don't

  1. (archaic) Contraction of done it.
This entry needs quotations to illustrate usage. If you come across any interesting, durably archived quotes then please add them!

References

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  1. ^ Arnold M. Zwicky and Geoffrey K. Pullum, Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t, Language 59 (3), 1983, pp. 502–513
  2. ^ So Don't I
  3. ^ Joly, André (1990), "He don't / Don't he ? in the History of English : a Study in Psychosemiology", in Roux, Louis (director, CIEREC), L'Organisation du sens, domaine anglais: recueil en l'honneur de Jean Lavédrine, pages 125-137.
  4. ^ Patricia T. O’Conner, Stewart Kellerman (2023) “Was ‘it don’t’ once good English?”, in Grammarphobia‎[1]
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