# don

Pronunciation: US say "DAHN" /dɑn/; UK say "DON" /dɒn/

## Verb

1. To put on a piece of clothing or other article of personal attire.
   - Simple: To put on clothes, a hat, or other things you wear.
   - _Visitors must don hard hats and safety glasses before entering the plant._
   - _Having donned his best suit, he set off for the interview._

## Noun

2. A title of respect put before a man's first name in Spanish- and Italian-speaking countries, given to noblemen and men of standing and, in Italy, to Catholic priests.
   - Simple: A polite title put before a man's first name in Spanish or Italian, used for nobles, respected men and Italian priests.
   - _Everyone on the estate addressed the landowner as Don Esteban._
   - _On summer evenings the dons and their families strolled around the plaza in their finest clothes._
3. A boss in the mafia, the head of a group of organized criminals.
   - Simple: A leader of a mafia group of criminals.
   - _The aging don still ran the family's gambling rackets from a back room of the restaurant._
   - _Prosecutors spent years looking for a witness willing to testify against the don._
4. A university teacher, especially a fellow or tutor of a college at Oxford or Cambridge. *(UK)*
   - Simple: A teacher at a university, especially at Oxford or Cambridge.
   - _As a young don at Cambridge, he spent his mornings lecturing and his afternoons in the college library._
   - _The dons dined at high table while the undergraduates sat on long benches below._
5. An employee of a university residence who lives among the students housed there. *(Canada)*
   - Simple: A worker at a university residence who lives there with the students.
   - _She worked as a don in first-year residence, living on the same floor as forty students._
   - _If the noise gets out of hand, call your don before you call campus security._
6. Any man, referred to in a casual, familiar way. *(dialectal, Multicultural London English)*
   - Simple: A man or a guy, said in casual talk.
   - _Some don at the chicken shop tried to push in front of me, innit._
   - _Two dons from the next estate turned up at the party._

## Origin

**Meanings 2–6** — The word goes back to Latin dominus, a "lord, head of household," which was built on domus ("house"). It has doublets in dom, domine, dominie, and dominus, and is akin to don in Italian, Sicilian, and Spanish.
**Meaning 1** — Formed as do + on, it comes from the Old English phrase dōn on by way of Middle English don ("to put on"). Doff, dup, and dout make useful comparisons.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/don (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).