don

Forms

dōn (irregular; third-person singular present dēþ, past singular dyde, past plural dydon)^[1]

• Northumbrian and Vespasian Psalter forms: ic dōm, dōa, dōe, dōas;^[2] Kentish preterite plural deodan.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *dōn, from Proto-Germanic *dōną (“to do, make; to put”).^[1][3] The verb is West Germanic: Old Frisian dwā, Old Saxon dōn, Old Dutch duon and Old High German tuon.^[4][5][6] It has been lost in East and North Germanic, but Hogg and Fulk compare the weak preterite endings Gothic -𐌳𐌰 (-da) and -𐌳𐌴𐌳𐌿𐌽 (-dēdun).^[7]

It goes back to the root Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place”), seen in Ancient Greek τίθημι (títhēmi, “I put”), Latin faciō (“I do, make”), Lithuanian dėti (“to put”), Proto-Slavic *děti (“to put”) and Hittite dāi- (“to put”).^[4][3][7] The West Germanic verb has the o-grade of the root where the other languages usually have the e-grade;^[7] Bammesberger explains the ⟨ō⟩ as the vowel of the old perfect, carried into the present after the reduplication was lost.^[7] Wiktionary instead derives the present from the root's perfective and the past from its reduplicated imperfective, and also calls the o-grade unexpected.^[1]

The umlaut of ⟨dēst⟩ and ⟨dēð⟩ shows that the thematic endings of the strong verbs were taken over by this originally athematic verb.^[8] The past ⟨dyde⟩ is hard to explain: most scholars see in it a remodelled reduplicated form like Proto-Indo-European *dʰédʰeh₁t, keeping the reduplicating syllable, with umlaut from the subjunctive.^[8] Wiktionary calls its ⟨-y-⟩ unexplained beside the expected ⟨dede⟩ or ⟨dǣdon⟩.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in a Kentish charter of 805×810, the grant of Oswulf and Beornthryth to Christ Church, Canterbury, which asks that their anniversary be kept with services and alms suæ mon hiora doeð “as is done for theirs”.^[9][10] Its single sheet is of the ninth century: Parsons held it to be contemporary, Campbell a copy of the original, and Crick dates its drafting and writing to the 840s.^[9] In the Vespasian Psalter gloss of the mid-ninth century halne me doa renders “saluum me fac” “make me safe”.^[11][10]

Semantic evolution

The verb covers doing and making, causing (with an infinitive or a clause), putting and placing, adding, removing, giving and treating someone in a certain way.^[12][2][1] In glosses it renders Latin “facere”, “agere”, “gerere”, “patrare” and “inferre”.^[3] In Beowulf it means “put, place” as well as “act”, and is often used, as in later English, in place of a verb already said (swā hē nū ġīt dēð).^[13] The sense “add” is in Byrhtferth's Manual: Dō þrītiġ þǣr tō “add thirty to it”.^[1]

It lived on as Middle English don, now English do; its use as an auxiliary began in Middle English, and the old sense “put, place” survives only in phrases such as do away with.^[14]

Timeline

• 805×810 – doeð in the Kentish charter of Oswulf and Beornthryth, in a ninth-century single sheet.^[9][10]
• s. ix med. – halne me doa “make me safe” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[11][10]
• 890×897 – doo in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[15][10]
• s. x/xi – dyde “put” and dēð standing for another verb in the Beowulf manuscript.^[16][13]
• c. 1011 – Dō þrītiġ þǣr tō “add thirty to it” in Byrhtferth's Manual.^[1]

Meanings

Verb

1. to do, act; to perform, carry out.^[12][3]
2. to make; to cause, with an infinitive or a clause.^[12][17]
3. to put, place; to take away or remove.^[12][13]
4. to add.^[1][12]
5. to give, bestow (with a dative); to treat someone in a certain way.^[1][12]
6. to consider, esteem: to make much or nothing of.^[13][12]
7. standing for a verb already used, to avoid repeating it.^[13][1]

Word family

• ādōn
• bedōn
• fordōn
• fuldōn
• ġedōn
• misdōn
• oferdōn
• ondōn

Descendants

• Middle English don (→ English do; Scots dae; Scots dee)^[1]

Related words

• dǣd
• dōm

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 154
3. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. dōn
4. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 73
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
6. ^ Hofmann, Dietrich; Popkema, Anne Tjerk (2008), Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. dwā
7. ^ a b c d Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.152
8. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.153
9. ^ a b c The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 1188
10. ^ a b c d e Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
11. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 329
12. ^ a b c d e f g Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 208
13. ^ a b c d e Fulk, R. D.; Bjork, Robert E.; Niles, John D., eds. (2008), Klaeber's Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (glossary), p. s.v. dōn
14. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 499
16. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 344
17. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 762