Etymology
1. M.E.
do, first person singular of O.E.
don, from W.Gmc.
*don, from PIE base
*dhe- "to put, place, do, make" (see factitious). Slang meaning "to do the sex act with or to" is from 1913. Second person
does was a Northumbrian variant in O.E. that displaced
doth, doeth 16c.-17c. The pt.
did is O.E.
dyde, the only remainder in Gmc. of the old linguistic pattern of forming a pt. by reduplication of the stem of the present tense. Far back in Gmc. the equivalent of
did was used as a suffix to make the past tenses of other verbs, hence the English
-ed suffix (O.E.
-de). The pp.
done grew out of O.E. pp.
gedon, but the only vestige of the prefix is in
ado. Periphrastic form in negative sentences ("They did not think") replaced the O.E. negative particles ("Hie ne wendon"). U.S. Southern use of
done in phrases like "he done gone to the store" is attested from 1827, according to OED: "a perfective auxiliary or with adverbial force in the sense 'already; completely.' " Slang
done for "doomed" is from 1842.
Doable has been around since 1449. Expression
do or die is attested from 1621. Contraction
don't for
do not is first recorded 1672.
2. From Middle English don, from Old English dōn, from Proto-West Germanic *dōn, from Proto-Germanic *dōną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place, do, make”).
3. For senses 4 and 5, compare Old Norse duga, also Northern English dow.
4. The past tense form is from Middle English didde, dude, from Old English dyde, *diede, an unexpected development from Proto-Germanic *dedǭ/*dedē (the expected reflex would be *ded), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰédʰeh₁ti, an athematic e-reduplicated verb of the same root *dʰeh₁-.
5. The meaningless use of do in interrogative, negative, and affirmative sentences (e.g. "Do you like painting?" "Yes, I do"), existing in some form in most Germanic languages, is thought by some linguists to be one of the Brittonicisms in English, calqued from Brythonic. It is first recorded in Middle English, where it may have marked the perfective aspect, though in some cases the meaning seems to be imperfective. In Early Modern English, any meaning in such contexts was lost, making it a dummy auxiliary, and soon thereafter its use became mandatory in most questions and negations.
6. Doublets include deed, deem, and -dom, but not deal.
7. Other cognates include, via Latin, English feast, festival, fair (“celebration”), via Greek, English theo-, theme, thesis, and Sanskrit दधाति (dadhāti, “to put”), धातृ (dhātṛ, “creator”) and धातु (dhātu, “layer, element, root”). See: Middle English '
don', Old English '
don', Proto-Germanic '
*dōną', English '
dow', Proto-Indo-European '
*dʰédʰeh₁ti', English '
feast', Sanskrit '
दधाति'.
Verbs referencing "do"
Sranan
du, English
theme, German, old spelling
tun, German, Pennsylvania
duh, Swedish
dana, Alemannic German
tue, Old Church Slavonic
дѣлати, Greek, Ancient
τίθημι, Sanskrit
दधाति, Danish
danne, Norwegian
danne, Russian
девать, Russian
деть, Cimbrian tüan, Cimbrian tüunan.