Etymology From Middle English don (“to put on”), from Old English dōn on; equivalent to do + on. Compare also doff, dup, dout.
1
To put on clothing; to dress (oneself) in an article of personal attire.
To don one's clothes.
Now when he had reached the King's capital wherein was Alaeddin, he alighted at one of the Kháns; and, when he had rested from the weariness of wayfare, he donned his dress and went down to wander about the streets, where he never passed a group without hearing them prate about the pavilion and its grandeur and vaunt the beauty of Alaeddin and his lovesomeness, his liberality and generosity, his fine manners and his good morals.1886-88, Richard Francis Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night:
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Having donned our PPE, we walk through the site to the prefab that controls access to the tunnel.2022 March 23, Paul Bigland, “HS2 is just 'passing through'”, in RAIL, number 953, page 41:
Etymology From Latin dominus (“lord, head of household”), akin to Italian don, Sicilian don, Spanish don; from domus (“house”). Doublet of dom, domine, dominie, and dominus.
1
UK A university professor, particularly one at Oxford or Cambridge.
No one feeds at the high table except the dons and the gentlemen-commoners, who are undergraduates in velvet caps and silk gowns[.]1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], chapter I, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 1st, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC, page 12:
The truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it’s hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse you’ll give him as a cue.1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVI, in Daniel Deronda, volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II (Meeting Streams), page 321:
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As he told me about the civilization he was creating on his desktop, he gazed up at the ceiling, humming fragments of a melody over and over. The music of his speech was pitched high, alternately poetic and pedantic, as if the soul of an Oxford don had been awkwardly reincarnated in the body of a boy.2015, Steve Silberman, “Introduction”, in Megan Newman, editor, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, New York: Avery, →ISBN, page 8:
2
Canada An employee of a university residence who lives among the student residents.
3
A mafia boss, especially one who is Italian or Italian-American.
4
A (usually Spanish or Italian) title of respect to a man, especially a lord or nobleman.
Wo often of an evening go and hear the band in the square opposite the captin-giniral’s palace—it is here were the dons and donnas and all the fashionables assemble, and I must say it’s amusing.1845 September, Charles F. Ellerman, “Reminiscences of the Island of Cuba”, in Simmonds’s Colonial Magazine, volume VI, number 21, London, chapter VIII (Mrs. Smith seized with furor scribendi, writes a lengthy Epistle to her dear Cousin Mrs. Margery Stubbs), page 79:
Time was when the walker amid California vales could stop at some cool cellar hid in these western hills and pour from great flagons a shimmering glass of cool red wine. Nowadays, the hand of the law has stepped in and spoiled all this, because the hordes of wanderers who have come west have made of these resting places questionable resorts—made of them places that the Spanish dons and donnas never dreamed of.1906 August, Harry H. Dunn, “Afoot in California”, in Western Field, volume 9, number 1, San Francisco, Calif., page 481, column 1:
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A sustained media campaign against American domination would require the support of just a few dot-com dons and donnas or hedge fund phenoms who want to head straight for structural change and skip the reformist way stations supported by philanthropic business leaders like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Ben Cohen, Gary Hirshberg, and the later[ ]Paul Newman’s family.2019, Caleb Stewart Rossiter, “Taking the Handles: Debating History and Morality”, in The Turkey and the Eagle: The Struggle for America’s Global Role, New York, N.Y.: Algora Publishing, →ISBN, page 283: