The Collaborative International Dictionary
do \do\ (d[=oo]), v. t. or auxiliary. [imp. did (d[i^]d); p. p. done (d[u^]n); p. pr. & vb. n. Doing (d[=oo]"[i^]ng). This verb, when transitive, is formed in the indicative, present tense, thus: I do, thou doest (d[=oo]"[e^]st) or dost (d[u^]st), he does (d[u^]z), doeth (d[=oo]"[e^]th), or doth (d[u^]th); when auxiliary, the second person is, thou dost. As an independent verb, dost is obsolete or rare, except in poetry. ``What dost thou in this world?'' --Milton. The form doeth is a verb unlimited, doth, formerly so used, now being the auxiliary form. The second pers, sing., imperfect tense, is didst (d[i^]dst), formerly didest (d[i^]d"[e^]st).] [AS. d[=o]n; akin to D. doen, OS. duan, OHG. tuon, G. thun, Lith. deti, OSlav. d[=e]ti, OIr. d['e]nim I do, Gr. tiqe`nai to put, Skr. dh[=a], and to E. suffix -dom, and prob. to L. facere to do, E. fact, and perh. to L. -dere in some compounds, as addere to add, credere to trust. [root]65. Cf. Deed, Deem, Doom, Fact, Creed, Theme.]
To place; to put. [Obs.]
--Tale of a Usurer (about 1330).-
To cause; to make; -- with an infinitive. [Obs.]
My lord Abbot of Westminster did do shewe to me late certain evidences.
--W. Caxton.I shall . . . your cloister do make.
--Piers Plowman.A fatal plague which many did to die.
--Spenser.We do you to wit [i. e., We make you to know] of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia.
--2 Cor. viii. 1.Note: We have lost the idiom shown by the citations (do used like the French faire or laisser), in which the verb in the infinitive apparently, but not really, has a passive signification, i. e., cause . . . to be made.
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To bring about; to produce, as an effect or result; to effect; to achieve.
The neglecting it may do much danger.
--Shak.He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good not harm.
--Shak. -
To perform, as an action; to execute; to transact to carry out in action; as, to do a good or a bad act; do our duty; to do what I can.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.
--Ex. xx. 9.We did not do these things.
--Ld. Lytton.You can not do wrong without suffering wrong.
--Emerson. Hence: To do homage, honor, favor, justice, etc., to render homage, honor, etc. To bring to an end by action; to perform completely; to finish; to accomplish; -- a sense conveyed by the construction, which is that of the past participle done. ``Ere summer half be done.'' ``I have done weeping.''
--Shak.To make ready for an object, purpose, or use, as food by cooking; to cook completely or sufficiently; as, the meat is done on one side only.
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To put or bring into a form, state, or condition, especially in the phrases, to do death, to put to death; to slay; to do away (often do away with), to put away; to remove; to do on, to put on; to don; to do off, to take off, as dress; to doff; to do into, to put into the form of; to translate or transform into, as a text.
Done to death by slanderous tongues. -- Shak.
The ground of the difficulty is done away. -- Paley.
Suspicions regarding his loyalty were entirely done away.
--Thackeray.To do on our own harness, that we may not; but we must do on the armor of God. -- Latimer.
Then Jason rose and did on him a fair Blue woolen tunic. -- W. Morris (Jason).
Though the former legal pollution be now done off, yet there is a spiritual contagion in idolatry as much to be shunned.
--Milton.It [``Pilgrim's Progress''] has been done into verse: it has been done into modern English. -- Macaulay.
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To cheat; to gull; to overreach. [Colloq.]
He was not be done, at his time of life, by frivolous offers of a compromise that might have secured him seventy-five per cent. -- De Quincey.
To see or inspect; to explore; as, to do all the points of interest. [Colloq.]
(Stock Exchange) To cash or to advance money for, as a bill or note.
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To perform work upon, about, for, or at, by way of caring for, looking after, preparing, cleaning, keeping in order, or the like.
The sergeants seem to do themselves pretty well.
--Harper's Mag. -
To deal with for good and all; to finish up; to undo; to ruin; to do for. [Colloq. or Slang]
Sometimes they lie in wait in these dark streets, and fracture his skull, . . . or break his arm, or cut the sinew of his wrist; and that they call doing him.
--Charles Reade.Note: (a) Do and did are much employed as auxiliaries, the verb to which they are joined being an infinitive. As an auxiliary the verb do has no participle. ``I do set my bow in the cloud.''
--Gen. ix. -
[Now archaic or rare except for emphatic assertion.] Rarely . . . did the wrongs of individuals to the knowledge of the public. -- Macaulay. (b) They are often used in emphatic construction. ``You don't say so, Mr. Jobson. -- but I do say so.'' --Sir W. Scott. ``I did love him, but scorn him now.'' --Latham. (c) In negative and interrogative constructions, do and did are in common use. I do not wish to see them; what do you think? Did C[ae]sar cross the Tiber? He did not. ``Do you love me?'' --Shak. (d) Do, as an auxiliary, is supposed to have been first used before imperatives. It expresses entreaty or earnest request; as, do help me. In the imperative mood, but not in the indicative, it may be used with the verb to be; as, do be quiet. Do, did, and done often stand as a general substitute or representative verb, and thus save the repetition of the principal verb. ``To live and die is all we have to do.'' --Denham. In the case of do and did as auxiliaries, the sense may be completed by the infinitive (without to) of the verb represented. ``When beauty lived and died as flowers do now.'' --Shak. ``I . . . chose my wife as she did her wedding gown.'' --Goldsmith. My brightest hopes giving dark fears a being. As the light does the shadow. -- Longfellow. In unemphatic affirmative sentences do is, for the most part, archaic or poetical; as, ``This just reproach their virtue does excite.'' --Dryden. To do one's best, To do one's diligence (and the like), to exert one's self; to put forth one's best or most or most diligent efforts. ``We will . . . do our best to gain their assent.'' --Jowett (Thucyd.). To do one's business, to ruin one. [Colloq.] --Wycherley. To do one shame, to cause one shame. [Obs.] To do over.
To make over; to perform a second time.
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To cover; to spread; to smear. ``Boats . . . sewed together and done over with a kind of slimy stuff like rosin.'' --De Foe. To do to death, to put to death. (See 7.) [Obs.] To do up.
To put up; to raise. [Obs.]
--Chaucer.To pack together and envelop; to pack up.
To accomplish thoroughly. [Colloq.]
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To starch and iron. ``A rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch.''
--Hawthorne.To do way, to put away; to lay aside. [Obs.]
--Chaucer.To do with, to dispose of; to make use of; to employ; -- usually preceded by what. ``Men are many times brought to that extremity, that were it not for God they would not know what to do with themselves.''
--Tillotson.To have to do with, to have concern, business or intercourse with; to deal with. When preceded by what, the notion is usually implied that the affair does not concern the person denoted by the subject of have. ``Philology has to do with language in its fullest sense.''
--Earle. ``What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah?
--2 Sam. xvi. 10.