Do (?), v. i. 1.
To act or behave in any manner; to conduct one's self.
They fear not the Lord, neither do they after .
. . the law and commandment.
2 Kings xvii.
34.
2. To fare; to be, as regards health; as,
they asked him how he did; how do you do to-
day?
3. [Perh. a different word. OE. dugen,
dowen, to avail, be of use, AS. dugan. See
Doughty.] To succeed; to avail; to answer the purpose; to
serve; as, if no better plan can be found, he will make this
do.
You would do well to prefer a bill against all kings
and parliaments since the Conquest; and if that won't do;
challenge the crown.
Collier.
To do by. See under By. --
To do for. (a) To answer for;
to serve as; to suit. (b) To put an end to;
to ruin; to baffle completely; as, a goblet is done for when
it is broken. [Colloq.]
Some folks are happy and easy in mind when their
victim is stabbed and done for.
Thackeray.
-- To do withal, to help or prevent it.
[Obs.] "I could not do withal." Shak. -- To do
without, to get along without; to dispense with. -
- To have done, to have made an end or
conclusion; to have finished; to be quit; to desist. --
To have done with, to have completed; to be
through with; to have no further concern with. -- Well
to do, in easy circumstances.
Do (d?), v. t. or auxiliary.
[imp. Did (dĭd); p.
p. Done (ducr/n); p. pr. & vb. n.
Doing (d?"ĭng). This verb, when transitive, is
formed in the indicative, present tense, thus: I do, thou
doest (d?"ĕst) or dost (dŭst), he
does (dŭz), doeth (d?"ĕth), or
doth (dŭth); when auxiliary, the second person is, thou
dost. As an independent verb, dost is obsolete or rare,
except in poetry. "What dost thou in this world?"
Milton. The form doeth is a verb unlimited,
doth, formerly so used, now being the auxiliary form. The
second pers, sing., imperfect tense, is didst (dĭdst),
formerly didest (dĭd"ĕst).] [AS.
dōn; akin to D. doen, OS. duan, OHG.
tuon, G. thun, Lith. deti, OSlav.
dēti, OIr. dénim I do, Gr.
tiqe`nai to put, Skr. dhā, and to E. suffix
-dom, and prob. to L. facere to do, E. fact, and
perh. to L. -dere in some compounds, as addere to add,
credere to trust. √65. Cf. Deed, Deem,
Doom, Fact, Creed, Theme.]
1. To place; to put. [Obs.] Tale of a
Usurer (about 1330).
2. To cause; to make; -- with an
infinitive. [Obs.]
My lord Abbot of Westminster did do shewe to me
late certain evidences.
W. Caxton.
I shall . . . your cloister do make.
Piers Plowman.
A fatal plague which many did to
die.
Spenser.
We do you to wit [i. e., We make
you to know] of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of
Macedonia.
2 Cor. viii. 1.
☞ We have lost the idiom shown by the citations (do
used like the French faire or laisser), in which the
verb in the infinitive apparently, but not really, has a passive
signification, i. e., cause . . . to be made.
3. To bring about; to produce, as an effect
or result; to effect; to achieve.
The neglecting it may do much
danger.
Shak.
He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them
neither good not harm.
Shak.
4. To perform, as an action; to execute; to
transact to carry out in action; as, to do a good or a bad
act; do our duty; to do what I can.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy
work.
Ex. xx. 9.
We did not do these things.
Ld.
Lytton.
You can not do wrong without suffering
wrong.
Emerson.
Hence: To do homage, honor, favor,
justice, etc., to render homage, honor, etc.
5. To bring to an end by action; to perform
completely; to finish; to accomplish; -- a sense conveyed by the
construction, which is that of the past participle done.
"Ere summer half be done." "I have done weeping."
Shak.
6. To make ready for an object, purpose, or
use, as food by cooking; to cook completely or sufficiently; as, the
meat is done on one side only.
7. To put or bring into a form, state, or
condition, especially in the phrases, to do death, to put to
death; to slay; to do away (often do away with), to put
away; to remove; to do on, to put on; to don; to do
off, to take off, as dress; to doff; to do into, to put
into the form of; to translate or transform into, as a
text.
Done to death by slanderous
tongues.
Shak.
The ground of the difficulty is done
away.
Paley.
Suspicions regarding his loyalty were entirely done
away.
Thackeray.
To do on our own harness, that we may not; but
we must do on the armor of God.
Latimer.
Then Jason rose and did on him a fair
Blue woolen tunic.
W. Morris (Jason).
Though the former legal pollution be now done
off, yet there is a spiritual contagion in idolatry as much to be
shunned.
Milton.
It ["Pilgrim's Progress"] has been done into
verse: it has been done into modern English.
Macaulay.
8. To cheat; to gull; to overreach.
[Colloq.]
He was not be done, at his time of life, by
frivolous offers of a compromise that might have secured him seventy-
five per cent.
De Quincey.
9. To see or inspect; to explore; as, to
do all the points of interest. [Colloq.]
10. (Stock Exchange) To cash or to
advance money for, as a bill or note.
☞ (a) Do and did are much
employed as auxiliaries, the verb to which they are joined being an
infinitive. As an auxiliary the verb do has no participle. "I
do set my bow in the cloud." Gen. ix. 13. [Now archaic
or rare except for emphatic assertion.]
Rarely . . . did the wrongs of individuals to
the knowledge of the public.
Macaulay.
(b) They are often used in emphatic construction.
"You don't say so, Mr. Jobson. -- but I do say so." Sir W.
Scott. "I did love him, but scorn him now."
Latham. (c) In negative and interrogative
constructions, do and did are in common use. I
do not wish to see them; what do you think? Did
Cæsar cross the Tiber? He did not. "Do you love
me?" Shak. (d) Do, as an auxiliary, is
supposed to have been first used before imperatives. It expresses
entreaty or earnest request; as, do help me. In the imperative
mood, but not in the indicative, it may be used with the verb to
be; as, do be quiet. Do, did, and
done often stand as a general substitute or representative
verb, and thus save the repetition of the principal verb. "To live
and die is all we have to do." Denham. In the case of
do and did as auxiliaries, the sense may be completed
by the infinitive (without to) of the verb represented. "When
beauty lived and died as flowers do now." Shak. "I . .
. chose my wife as she did her wedding gown."
Goldsmith.
My brightest hopes giving dark fears a being.
As the light does the shadow.
Longfellow.
In unemphatic affirmative sentences do is, for the most
part, archaic or poetical; as, "This just reproach their virtue
does excite." Dryden.
To do one's best, To do one's
diligence (and the like), to exert one's self; to put
forth one's best or most or most diligent efforts. "We will . .
. do our best to gain their assent." Jowett (Thucyd.).
-- To do one's business, to ruin one.
[Colloq.] Wycherley. -- To do one shame,
to cause one shame. [Obs.] -- To do over.
(a) To make over; to perform a second time.
(b) To cover; to spread; to smear. "Boats .
. . sewed together and done over with a kind of slimy stuff
like rosin." De Foe. -- To do to death,
to put to death. (See 7.) [Obs.] -- To do
up. (a) To put up; to raise.
[Obs.] Chaucer. (b) To pack together and
envelop; to pack up. (c) To accomplish
thoroughly. [Colloq.] (d) To starch and
iron. "A rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the
famous yellow starch." Hawthorne. -- To do
way, to put away; to lay aside. [Obs.]
Chaucer. -- To do with, to dispose of;
to make use of; to employ; -- usually preceded by what.
"Men are many times brought to that extremity, that were it not for
God they would not know what to do with themselves."
Tillotson. -- To have to do with, to
have concern, business or intercourse with; to deal with. When
preceded by what, the notion is usually implied that the
affair does not concern the person denoted by the subject of
have. "Philology has to do with language in its
fullest sense." Earle. "What have I to do with
you, ye sons of Zeruiah? 2 Sam. xvi. 10.