don

noun

1. (UK)A university professor, particularly one at Oxford or Cambridge.

   “No one feeds at the high table except the dons and the gentlemen-commoners, who are undergraduates in velvet caps and silk gowns[.]”

   “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.”

2. (Canada)An employee of a university residence who lives among the student residents.
3. A mafia boss, primarily for Italian or Italian American bosses.
4. 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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

5. (Multicultural-London-English)Any man, bloke, dude.

   “I’m confused like who’s this don .22 bells and that who’s on”

6. (uncountable)dissolved organic nitrogen
7. (abbreviation, alt-of, uncountable)Abbreviation of deoxynivalenol, a toxic byproduct of Fusarium head blight of barley.

verb

1. (transitive)To put on clothing; to dress (oneself) in an article of personal attire.

   “To don one's clothes.”

   “Now when he had reached the King's capital wherein was Alaeddin, he alighted at one of the Kháns; and, when he had rested from the weariness of wayfare, he donned his dress and went down to wander about the streets, where he never passed a group without hearing them prate about the pavilion and its grandeur and vaunt the beauty of Alaeddin and his lovesomeness, his liberality and generosity, his fine manners and his good morals.”

   “Having donned our PPE, we walk through the site to the prefab that controls access to the tunnel.”

name

1. A diminutive of the male given names Donald or Gordon.

   “The bill, which lawmakers approved in a 211-206 vote, now moves to the Republican-led Senate for consideration. One Republican, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, voted with Democrats Thursday against the measure.”

2. A river, the fifth-longest in Europe, in Tula, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Volgograd and Rostov Oblasts, Russia, flowing 1160 miles to the Sea of Azov.

   “Thence they marched againſt Orna, a Port Towne on the Riuer Don, where were many Gazarians, Alanians, Ruſſians, and Saracens, which he drowned with the Riuer running through the Citie, turning it out of the chanell.”

3. A river in Aberdeenshire council area, Scotland, United Kingdom, flowing 62 miles to the North Sea at Aberdeen.
4. A river in South Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, on which Doncaster is situated.
5. A minor river in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom, which joins the Tyne at Jarrow.
6. A river in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, named after the River Don in Yorkshire.
7. A locality in the City of Devonport, Tasmania, Australia.
8. A surname.