Link Centre Dictionary

do

UK/dəʊ/ US/doʊ/ very common informal slang uk us
verb (13) noun (3)

verb

1.

engage in

  • “make love, not war”
  • “make an effort”
  • “do research”
  • “do nothing”
  • “make revolution”
Synonyms
2.

carry out or perform an action

  • “John did the painting, the weeding, and he cleaned out the gutters”
  • “the skater executed a triple pirouette”
  • “she did a little dance”
Synonyms
3.

get (something) done

  • “I did my job”
Synonyms
4.

proceed or get along

  • “How is she doing in her new job?”
  • “How are you making out in graduate school?”
  • “He”
Synonyms
5.

give rise to; cause to happen or occur, not always intentionally

  • “cause a commotion”
  • “make a stir”
  • “cause an accident”
Synonyms
6.

carry out or practice; as of jobs and professions

  • “practice law”
Synonyms
7.

be sufficient; be adequate, either in quality or quantity

  • “A few words would answer”
  • “This car suits my purpose well”
  • “Will $100 do?”
  • “A”
  • “grade doesn”
  • “;”
Synonyms
8.

create or design, often in a certain way

  • “Do my room in blue”
  • “I did this piece in wood to express my love for the forest”
Synonyms
Antonyms
9.

behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself

  • “You should act like an adult”
  • “Don”
  • “;”
  • “;”
Synonyms
10.

spend time in prison or in a labor camp

  • “He did six years for embezzlement”
Synonyms
11.

carry on or manage

  • “We could do with a little more help around here”
Synonyms
12.

arrange attractively

  • “dress my hair for the wedding”
Synonyms
13.

travel or traverse (a distance)

  • “This car does 150 miles per hour”
  • “We did 6 miles on our hike every day”

noun

1.
2.

the syllable naming the first (tonic) note of any major scale in solmization

Synonyms
3.

doctor''s degree in osteopathy

Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English don, from Old English dōn, from Proto-West Germanic *dōn, from Proto-Germanic *dōną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place, do, make”). For senses 4 and 5, compare Old Norse duga, also Northern English dow. The past tense form is from Middle English didde, dude, from Old English dyde, *diede, an unexpected development from Proto-Germanic *dedǭ/*dedē (the expected reflex would be *ded), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰédʰeh₁ti, an athematic e-reduplicated verb of the same root *dʰeh₁-. The meaningless use of do in interrogative, negative, and affirmative sentences (e.g. "Do you like painting?" "Yes, I do"), existing in some form in most Germanic languages, is thought by some linguists to be one of the Brittonicisms in English, calqued from Brythonic. It is first recorded in Middle English, where it may have marked the perfective aspect, though in some cases the meaning seems to be imperfective. In Early Modern English, any meaning in such contexts was lost, making it a dummy auxiliary, and soon thereafter its use became mandatory in most questions and negations. Doublets include deed, deem, and -dom, but not deal. Other cognates include, via Latin, Engl...

Phrases

  • a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
  • are you doing anything tomorrow
  • as you do
  • can do
  • can do this all day
  • can do with
  • can't do right for doing wrong
  • could do
  • dos and don'ts
  • hag do
  • hen do
  • stag do

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

See also

Related verbs

Entails

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.