don't

alternative obsolete do n't

1. Do not (negative auxiliary).

   Don't be such a nuisance!

   5 more examples

   Don't you think mom's awfully busy today?

   Why don't I carry those bags for you?

   Far be 't from lust; such wildfire ne'er / Shall dare to lurk or kindle here; / Diviner flames shall in our fancies roll, / Which do n't [sic] depress / To earthliness, / But elevate the soul.

   1646, John Hall, Poems, Cambridge, page 55

   “I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. […]”

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   Don't stand, Don't stand so, Don't stand so close to me.

   1980, The Police, "Don't Stand So Close to Me", Zenyatta Mondatta, A&M Records

2. nonstandardDoes not.

   I sure hope the road don’t come to own me.

   1971, Carol King, “So Far Away”, Tapestry, Ode Records

   5 more examples

   Blessed are the poor in spirit, saies he. Blessed are those that mourn. He don't say, Blessed are those that rejoyce; or, Blessed are those that have the Assurance of Gods love; or, Blessed are those that are strong in Grace: No, but doest thou know a poor weak, Christian, a mourning soul like a Dove of the Valleys; saies the Lord, I blesse him.

   1649, William Bridge, edited by William Greenhill, John Yates, and William Adderley, The Works of William Bridge, Sometime Fellow of Emmanuel College in Cambridg: Now Preacher of the Word of God at Yarmouth, volume 1, London: Peter Cole, page 85

   L. C. Baron. That don't alter the Pronunciation. It is the same Name.

   1717, The Tryal of Francis Francia, for High Treason, at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey; On Tuesday Jan. 22. 1716. Perused by the Right Honourable The Lord Chief-Baron Bury: And also by The Council for His Majesty, and for the Prisoner., London: D. Midwinter, page 31

   My mother knows old Mr. Laurence, but says he’s very proud and don’t like to mix with his neighbors.

   1868–1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter II, in Little Women: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC

   [Lord Chancellor] Allow me, as an old equity draftsman, to make a suggestion. The subtleties of the legal mind are equal to the emergency. The thing is really quite simple – the insertion of a single word will do it. Let it stand that every fairy shall die who don’t marry a mortal, and there you are, out of your difficulty at once!

   1882, W. S. Gilbert, An entirely original fairy opera, in two acts, entitled, Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri, London: Chappell & Co, page 38

   My girlfriend's jealous 'cause I talk about you twenty-four seven / But she don't know you like I know you, Slim, no one does / She don't know what it was like for people like us growing up / You gotta call me man, I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose

   2000, “Stan”, in Eminem (music), The Marshall Mathers LP

3. African-American VernacularUsed before an emphatic negative subject.

   Don’t nobody care.

alternative obsolete do n't

1. Stop!

plural don'ts · plural don't's · alternative obsolete do n't

1. Chiefly in dos and don'ts: something that must or should not be done.

   Among the don'ts he had done before he was twenty-one were peyote, alcohol, mescaline, and Methedrine.

   1968, Joan Didion, “Slouching towards Bethlehem”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

   1 more example

   And here’s one universal selfie don’t - if the setting is your bathroom, or any bathroom for that matter, it has no place in your Tinder lineup. Not hot.

   2025 October 1, Ally Jones, “A Step-By-Step Guide To Delete Tinder & Start Over (& When You Shouldn't)”, in Vida Select

   Antonyms: do

alternative obsolete do n't

1. abbreviationarchaiccontractionContraction of done + it.