don en · NOUN · etymology 1
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
- /dɒn/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /dɑn/ (General-American)
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dem- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *dṓmder. Proto-Italic *domanos Latin dominusder. English don From Latin dominus (“lord, head of household”), akin to Italian don, Sicilian don, Spanish don; from domus (“house”). Doublet of dom, domine, dominie, and dominus.
Meanings
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(UK) A university professor, particularly one at Oxford or Cambridge.
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: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:
- (Canada) An employee of a university residence who lives among the student residents.
- A mafia boss, especially one who is Italian or Italian-American.
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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: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:
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(Multicultural-London-English) Any 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:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| dons | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Coordinates
Deriveds
don hand · donship · donnish · donnism · donny
Relateds
Synonyms
Translations (12)
ru па́хан (mafia boss) · fi mafiapomo (mafia boss) · fi don (mafia boss) · uk дон (mafia boss) · ru паха́н (mafia boss) · nl maffiabaas (mafia boss) · cmn 老大 (mafia boss) · it don (mafia boss) · ru дон (mafia boss) · no mafiatopp (mafia boss) · ja ドン (mafia boss) · hi डॉन (mafia boss)