do'nut

plural do'nuts

1. pronunciation spellingrarePronunciation spelling of doughnut.

   To each visitor we will serve one cup of coffee and a do’nut or roll

   1936 November 27, “Ichy’s”, “Announcing the Opening Saturday, Nov. 28 of ‘Ichy’s’”, in C[harles] L[ee] Blanton, editor, Sikeston Standard, volume 25, number 19, Sikeston, Mo., →OCLC, page [2], column 1

   5 more examples

   A delicious odor was wafted upward from the galley, and both John and Cortland felt almost inclined to ask the meaning of it, when a broad, round, shining face appeared at the open window of the pilot-house, and a jolly voice said, in very broken English,—“Miss Wi’l’t, haf a do’nut?” and then a tempting plate of the delicious hot crisp rings was handed through the opening. […] “O Joe! there’s nothing better in all the wide world than your doughnuts, hot.[…]”

   1886, Mary Bradford Crowninshield, “To Go, or Not to Go, That Is the Question.—The Start.—First Experiences on Blue Water.”, in All Among the Lighthouses, or The Cruise of the Goldenrod, Boston, Mass.: D[aniel] Lothrop & Company, →OCLC, pages 19–20

   For a moment this confession failed to bring its reward, and something was said about punishing wilful waste by withholding the coveted doughnuts. This was a situation that called for reflection—and got it. After a few minutes of apparently serious thought, Chang sidled up to his mamma with this poser: “Say, mamma, if I hadn’t told you about putting it in the waste barrel, you’d never have knowed, and then I’d have had a do’nut.”

   1904 December, Samuel Slocombe, “Ethel’s Babies”, in Overland Monthly […], volume XLIV, number 6, San Francisco, Calif.: Overland Monthly Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 586, column 2

   The doughnut is a New York doughnut, a bagel, the sort with a hole in the middle, instead of jam. Maybe one should spell it American-style as ‘do’nut’! For the purposes of getting organized you need to turn the do’nut inside-out in your mind, so that the hole is filled in and the empty space is on the outside – if you can conceive of that. […] The things which you must do or you have failed, represent the solid core of the inside-out do’nut, the yolk of the egg.

   1990, Charles Handy, “The Inside-out Doughnut”, in Inside Organizations: 21 Ideas for Managers, London: BBC Books, published 1992, →ISBN, page 56

   Gobos which are required in precise focus are often helped by the addition of a ‘do’nut’, a metal hand-made mask fitted into the colour frame with a circle cut out to permit the light to pass.

   1995, Graham Walne, “Lighting effects”, in Graham Walne, editor, Effects for the Theatre, London: A & C Black; New York, N.Y.: Drama Book Publishers, →ISBN, page 99

   Come on. You need a good night’s sleep, that’s all. You’ll see it differently when you’ve had a do’nut and some coffee.

   1996, Barbara Erskine, “A Family Affair”, in Distant Voices, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, published 1997, →ISBN, page 369