4 entries under this word
n. (Mus.) A syllable attached to the first tone of the major diatonic scale for the purpose of sol-mization, or solfeggio. It is the first of the seven syllables used by the Italians as names of musical tones. In England and America the same syllables are used as a scale-pattern, while the tones in respect to absolute pitch are named by the first seven letters of the alphabet.
(dōō), v. t. or auxiliary. [imp. DID; p. p. DONE (dŭn); p. pr. & vb. n. DOING. This verb, when transitive, is formed in the indicative, present tense, thus, I do, thou doest or dost, he does or doth; when auxiliary, the second person is, thou dost. The transitive form dost is rare, except in poetry. “What dost thou in this world?” Milton.] [A.-S. dōn, D. doen, O. Sax. duan, O. H. Ger. tuon, Goth. taugan.]
Sense 1. To perform, as an action; to execute; to transact; to make.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. Ex. xx. 9.
To live and die is all we have to do. Denham.
Sense 2. To bring about; to produce, as an effect or result; to effect.
He waved indifferently ’twixt doing them neither good nor harm. Shak.
He hath too much concerned himself with the Presbyterians against the House of Lords, which will do him an injury. Pepys.
Sense 3. To bring to an end by action; to perform completely; to finish; to accomplish;—used chiefly in the participle done. “The battle done, and they within our power.” Shak. “As soon as work was done.” Dryden.
Sense 4. To make ready for an object, purpose, or use, as food by cooking; to prepare for eating; to cook completely; as, the meat is done on one side only.
Sense 5. To cause to exist, act, or suffer; to make; to occasion; to let.
A fatal plague which many did to die. Spenser.
Take him to do him dead. Shak.
Sense 6. To put or bring into a form, state, or condition, especially in the phrases, to do to death, to put to death, to slay; to do away, 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 written text.
To do on our own harness, that we may not; but we must do on the armor of God. Latimer.
Though the former legal pollution be now done off, yet there is a spiritual contagion in idolatry much to be shunned. Milton.
It [Pilgrim’s Progress] has been done into verse; it has been done into modern English. Macaulay.
Done to death by sudden blow. Byron.
Sense 7. To deceive; to play a trick upon; to hoax; to humbug. [Colloq.]
He was not to 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 do one’s best, one’s diligence, and the like, to exert one’s self; to put forth one’s best or most diligent efforts. To do over. (a.) To make over; to perform a second time. (b.) To cover; to spread; to smear. “Boats . . . sewed together and done over with a kind of slimy stuff like rosin.” Defoe.—To do up. (a.) To pack together and envelope; to pack up. (b.) To accomplish thoroughly. [Colloq.]—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. “What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah?” 2 Sam. xvi. 10.
As an auxiliary verb, do is used especially in forming negative and interrogative sentences; as, “Do you love him?” “I do not love him.” In affirmative sentences it is employed chiefly to make the expression emphatic, and has the principal stress of voice; as, “I do love him;” “Do come.” In the past, it sometimes emphasizes the idea of past time; as, “I did love him, but I love him no longer.” In other cases, the use of do is old-styled, stiff, or else poetical. “This just reproach their virtue does excite.” Dryden. “Expletives their feeble aid do join.” Pope.—Do often stands for the principal verb, to save repetition when the verb has just been used, and the sense is unambiguous.
Thus painters Cupids paint, thus poets do—
A naked god, blind, young, with arrows two. Sidney.
v. i. 1. To act or behave in any manner; to conduct one's self.
They fear not the Lord, neither do they after . . . the law and commandment. 2 Kings xvii. 34.
Sense 2. To fare; to be in a state with regard to sickness or health; as, they asked him how he did; how do you do, or how do you?
Sense 3. To succeed; to get along; to manage; to accomplish a purpose; to answer an end; as, if no better plan can be found, he will make this do.
You would do well to prefer a bill against all kings and Parliaments since the conquest; and if that won't do, challenge the crown. Collier.
To do for. (a.) To answer for; to serve as; to suit. (b.) To put an end to; to ruin; to baffle completely; to disappoint, &c.; as, a goblet is done for when it is broken; a person is done for when he has made a blunder, or met with an accident involving serious loss, trouble, or vexation. [Colloq. and low.]—To do without, to get along without; to dispense with.—To have done, to have made an end or conclusion; to have finished; to be quit; to desist.—To have done with, to have completed; to be through with; to have no further concern with.
n. 1. Deed; act; feat. W. Scott. 2. Ado; bustle; stir; to-do. [Rare.] “A great deal of do, and a great deal of trouble.” Selden.