don't
- 1Contracted form of 'do not', functioning as a negative auxiliary with a main verb.
We don't usually eat out during the week.
Don't forget to lock the door before you leave.
Note
The everyday contraction, built from do plus the negative ending -n't. Its spelling took time to settle: John Hall's Poems of 1646 still prints it as two pieces, "do n't". Beyond plain negation, it does steady work in tag questions that invite agreement ("rather bossy today, don't you?") and as the usual opener of negative commands ("Don't be such a nuisance!").
- 2Something that must or should not be done, especially as listed among rules of conduct or etiquette.
Chewing gum during the interview is a definite don't.
Every new employee receives a short guide to the office dos and don'ts.
Oppositedo
Note
A noun that turns a prohibition into a thing, almost always paired with its opposite in dos and don'ts. The plural is normally don'ts, though don't's also occurs. Outside the pair it can stand alone, and writers enjoy the play. Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) lists "the don'ts he had done", and Ally Jones calls a bathroom backdrop "one universal selfie don't".
- 3Used as a sharp command telling someone to immediately stop what they are doing.
Don't! That pan is still hot.
He reached for the switch, and she shouted, "Don't!"
- 4Contracted form of 'does not', used with a third-person singular subject.
She don't care what anyone thinks of her.
That old truck don't run the way it used to.
Note
A form that once appeared freely in print and is now marked as nonstandard. It reached the third person in two ways, depending on dialect. Some speakers clip "does not" while still saying "does" elsewhere. Others never add -s for he, she and it. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women gives a character the line "he's very proud and don't like to mix". In careful writing, use doesn't.
- 5Placed before an emphatic negative subject such as 'nobody' or 'nothing' to form a strongly negative statement.
Don't nobody around here lock their doors.
Don't nothing happen in this town without everyone hearing about it.
Note
A pattern of African-American Vernacular English often called negative inversion: the auxiliary comes first and a negative subject follows, as in Don't nobody care. It is a flat statement, not a question, and the stacked negatives strengthen each other rather than undoing each other. The verb stays bare (care, not cares), in line with the "does not" use in dialects that leave the third person unmarked.
Less common meaning
- 6Contraction of done it.
Note
An archaic contraction that only looks like a negative. It compresses done it, the past participle of "do it", and carries no "not" at all. When an older text seems to deny what its sentence plainly affirms, read it this way. It shares the spelling of the everyday negative by coincidence, and modern writing has no use for it outside deliberate period imitation.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
"Don't" is formed from "do" plus the contraction "-n't" (from "not"). In some dialects its third-person singular use may come from elision, while in others it reflects not marking the third person with "-s" at all.