don't
intjEtymology 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.
1
Stop!
don't
verbUK /dəʊnt/ · US /doʊnt/
Etymology 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.
1
do not (negative auxiliary).
- Don't you think mom's awfully busy today?
- Don't be such a nuisance!
4 more examples
- Why don't I carry those bags for you?
- Far be 't from lust; such wildfire ne'er / Shall dare to lurk or kindle here; / Diviner flames shall in our fancies roll, / Which do n't [sic] depress / To earthliness, / But elevate the soul.1646, John Hall, Poems, Cambridge, page 55:
- “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. […]”1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
- Don't stand, Don't stand so, Don't stand so close to me.1980, The Police, "Don't Stand So Close to Me", Zenyatta Mondatta, A&M Records
2
Nonstandard does not.
- 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.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:
- L. C. Baron. That don't alter the Pronunciation. It is the same Name.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:
4 more examples
- My mother knows old Mr. Laurence, but says he’s very proud and don’t like to mix with his neighbors.1868–1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter II, in Little Women: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC:
- [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!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:
- I sure hope the road don’t come to own me.1971, Carol King, “So Far Away”, Tapestry, Ode Records
- 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 lose2000, “Stan”, in Eminem (music), The Marshall Mathers LP:
3
Used before an emphatic negative subject.
African-American Vernacular
- Don’t nobody care.
- Derived terms
- dildon't, don't count your chickens before they're hatched, don't drop the soap, don't feed the troll, don't hate the player, hate the game, don't knock it till you've tried it, don't let the bedbugs bite, don't let the door hit you on the way out, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, don't mention it, don't pass go, don't pee in the wind and tell me it's raining, don't piss in the wind and tell me it's raining, don't put all your eggs in one basket, don't shit where you eat, don't shoot the messenger, hairdon't, yabba dabba don't, you don't know what you've got till it's gone