don
pronunciation
How to pronounce don in British English:
UK [dɒn]
How to pronounce don in American English:
US [dɑn]
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- Noun:
- teacher at a university of college (especially at Cambridge or Oxford)
- the head of an organized crime family
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- Verb:
- put clothing on one's body
Word Origin
- don
- don: see doff
- don (n.)
- 1520s, from Spanish or Portuguese don, title of respect, from Latin dominus "lord, master." The university sense is c. 1660, originally student slang; underworld sense is 1952, from Italian don, from Late Latin domnus, from Latin dominus (see domain). The fem. form is Dona (Spanish/Portuguese), Donna (Italian).
- don (v.)
- early 14c. contraction of do on (see doff). "After 1650 retained in popular use only in north. dialect; as a literary archaism it has become very frequent in 19th c." [OED]. Related: Donned; donning.
Example
- 1. Thomas friedman argued that governments had to don the golden straitjacket of market discipline .
- 2. When bosses must don a disguise to learn about how their organisations really work , trouble is in store .
- 3. Few people , other than scholars , will be familiar with the story of the cambridge don whose study of china 's scientific history helped to change the west 's appraisal of a civilisation once thought hopelessly backward .
- 4. Right in the center of the " neolithic age " hall ( 6000-3000 years bc ) there is a huge boat , 7,5 m in length , found on the bank of the don in 1954 .
- 5. Don paterson , an editor and a poet , claimed that " a non-poet can 't do a line-edit on a poem " ; it is essential for an editor to be a poet , too .