dunno
Noun pluraldunnos
Pluraldunnos
- 1Pronunciation spelling of do not know, also used to represent does not know.
I dunno why the bus is running so late today.
They keep asking, but we dunno when he's coming back.
Note
A spelling that captures speech: don't know run together until the auxiliary all but disappears. Because the do has dissolved, the form never changes for the subject (he dunno sits beside I dunno), and it often stands alone as a one-word reply. Writers use it to give a voice on the page, as C.J. Dennis does in The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915): "I dunno wot." In ordinary prose, write don't know or doesn't know.
- 2A spoken instance of saying "dunno": an offhand reply used in place of a real answer.
His only response to the detective's question was a flat dunno.
The teacher was tired of the dunnos she got whenever she asked about homework.
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Origin
This is the written form of an informal pronunciation of "don't know," which is itself a reduction of "do not know" or "does not know."