don
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VOCAB BUILDER
What is a basic definition of don?
Don means to put on or dress in clothing. The word Don is a title for men in Spanish and don is a term for the head of a mafia family. Don has a few other senses as a noun.
When used as a verb, don means to put on clothing. When you don a fancy hat, you place it on your head. Sometimes don is used to indicate that you’re putting on fancy clothes.
- Real-life examples: People don formal clothes to attend weddings. The media is often obsessed with the designer clothing that celebrities have donned for an awards show. It is a good idea to don a helmet when riding a bike.
- Used in a sentence: I don my long winter coat whenever it snows.
In Spanish, the title Don is used like Mr. in English to show respect to a man. Don is used before a man’s first name.
- Real-life example: The fictional Don Juan was a legendary womanizer. The fictional Don Quixote is remembered for battling with windmills.
- Used in a sentence: While in Spain, I met with my good friends Don Emilio and Don Diego.
The word don is also used to refer to the head of a mafia family or syndicate. This sense of don is also sometimes used as a title.
- Real-life examples: Actor Marlon Brando played Vito Corleone, the don of the fictional Corleone family, in the film The Godfather. Carlo Gambino was the don of New York City’s Gambino crime family.
- Used in a sentence: The police arrested several low-ranking members of the crime family but could never get evidence against the don.
Where does don come from?
The first records of the verb don come from around 1560. It is a contraction of the common verb do and the preposition on. The first records of the noun form of don come from around 1515. It ultimately comes from the Latin dominus, meaning “God” or “the Lord.”
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How is don used in real life?
Don is most often used to mean to put or to wear clothing.
Donning long underwear unironically is a hallmark of my adulthood.
— Alan Bennett Ilagan (@alanilagan) December 7, 2020
Women’s soccer player Sarah Fuller will don a football uniform Saturday for Vanderbilt and is poised to become the first woman to play in a Power 5 game when the Commodores visit Missouri.
— News 19 (@whnt) November 28, 2020
For the first time since last winter, I have donned slippers.
— Ben Rector (@benrector) October 20, 2014
Try using don!
Is don used correctly in the following sentence?
After coming in from the rain, I donned my jacket and hung it in the closet.