don

plural dons

1. UKA university professor, particularly one at Oxford or Cambridge.

   No one feeds at the high table except the dons and the gentlemen-commoners, who are undergraduates in velvet caps and silk gowns[.]

   1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], chapter I, in Tom Brown at Oxford: […], part 1st, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC, page 12

   2 more examples

   The truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it’s hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse you’ll give him as a cue.

   1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVI, in Daniel Deronda, volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II (Meeting Streams), page 321

   As he told me about the civilization he was creating on his desktop, he gazed up at the ceiling, humming fragments of a melody over and over. The music of his speech was pitched high, alternately poetic and pedantic, as if the soul of an Oxford don had been awkwardly reincarnated in the body of a boy.

   2015, Steve Silberman, “Introduction”, in Megan Newman, editor, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, New York: Avery, →ISBN, page 8

2. CanadaAn employee of a university residence who lives among the student residents.
3. A mafia boss, especially one who is Italian or Italian-American.
4. A (usually Spanish or Italian) title of respect to a man, especially a lord or nobleman.

   Wo often of an evening go and hear the band in the square opposite the captin-giniral’s palace—it is here were the dons and donnas and all the fashionables assemble, and I must say it’s amusing.

   1845 September, Charles F. Ellerman, “Reminiscences of the Island of Cuba”, in Simmonds’s Colonial Magazine, volume VI, number 21, London, chapter VIII (Mrs. Smith seized with furor scribendi, writes a lengthy Epistle to her dear Cousin Mrs. Margery Stubbs), page 79

   2 more examples

   Time was when the walker amid California vales could stop at some cool cellar hid in these western hills and pour from great flagons a shimmering glass of cool red wine. Nowadays, the hand of the law has stepped in and spoiled all this, because the hordes of wanderers who have come west have made of these resting places questionable resorts—made of them places that the Spanish dons and donnas never dreamed of.

   1906 August, Harry H. Dunn, “Afoot in California”, in Western Field, volume 9, number 1, San Francisco, Calif., page 481, column 1

   A sustained media campaign against American domination would require the support of just a few dot-com dons and donnas or hedge fund phenoms who want to head straight for structural change and skip the reformist way stations supported by philanthropic business leaders like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Ben Cohen, Gary Hirshberg, and the later[ ]Paul Newman’s family.

   2019, Caleb Stewart Rossiter, “Taking the Handles: Debating History and Morality”, in The Turkey and the Eagle: The Struggle for America’s Global Role, New York, N.Y.: Algora Publishing, →ISBN, page 283

5. Multicultural London EnglishAny man, bloke, dude.

   I’m confused like who’s this don .22 bells and that who’s on

   2017 October 31, Loski, “Olympic Chinging”, from 1:55

   Synonyms: donny

present singular third person dons · participle present donning · participle past donned · past donned

1. transitiveTo put on clothing; to dress (oneself) in an article of personal attire.

   To don one's clothes.

   2 more examples

   Now when he had reached the King's capital wherein was Alaeddin, he alighted at one of the Kháns; and, when he had rested from the weariness of wayfare, he donned his dress and went down to wander about the streets, where he never passed a group without hearing them prate about the pavilion and its grandeur and vaunt the beauty of Alaeddin and his lovesomeness, his liberality and generosity, his fine manners and his good morals.

   1886-88, Richard Francis Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night

   Having donned our PPE, we walk through the site to the prefab that controls access to the tunnel.

   2022 March 23, Paul Bigland, “HS2 is just 'passing through'”, in RAIL, number 953, page 41

   Synonyms: put on, clothe, dight, enrobe, accouter, address, apparel, array · Antonyms: doff

1. alternativeAlternative form of don't

1. A diminutive of the male given names Donald, Donovan, and Gordon.

   The bill, which lawmakers approved in a 211-206 vote, now moves to the Republican-led Senate for consideration. One Republican, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, voted with Democrats Thursday against the measure.

   2025 May 8, Veronica Stracqualursi and Sarah Ferris, “House passes GOP-led bill to rename Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America”, in CNN

1. A river, the fifth-longest in Europe, in Tula, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Volgograd and Rostov Oblasts, Russia, flowing 1160 miles to the Sea of Azov.

   Thence they marched againſt Orna, a Port Towne on the Riuer Don, where were many Gazarians, Alanians, Ruſſians, and Saracens, which he drowned with the Riuer running through the Citie, turning it out of the chanell.

   1613, Samuel Purchas, “[Asia.] Of the Tartarians, and of diuers Nations which they subdued; with their Pristine Rites.”, in Purchas His Pilgrimage. Or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discouered, from the Creation vnto this Present. […], London: […] William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, […], →OCLC, book IV (Of the Armenians, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Scythians, Tartarians, Chinois, and of Their Religions), page 339

1. A river in Aberdeenshire council area, Scotland, United Kingdom, flowing 62 miles to the North Sea at Aberdeen.
2. A river in South Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, on which Doncaster is situated.
3. A minor river in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom, which joins the Tyne at Jarrow.
4. A river in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, named after the River Don in Yorkshire.

   Synonyms: Don River, River Don

5. A locality in the City of Devonport, Tasmania, Australia.

1. A surname.

1. uncountablesciencesdissolved organic nitrogen
2. abbreviationuncountableAbbreviation of deoxynivalenol, a toxic byproduct of Fusarium head blight of barley.

   Synonyms: vomitoxin