From Ben Yagoda on Facebook today (2/19):
[about] today’s Philadelphia Inquirer investigation of Philly Managing Director Adam “No Show Jones” Thiel, who was away from the office for nearly five months last year, including time in the military reserve and (presumably) running his consulting firm, from which he reported income of more than $300,000. (That’s in addition to his city salary of $316,000.)
… The Inquirer article … shows continued morphing of the verb don from meaning ‘put on’ (don we now our gay apparel) to meaning ‘wear’. The newspaper reports: “Ahead of a snowstorm in January 2024, Thiel stood with [Mayor] Parker during a news conference about preparations. He donned a suit while snowflakes fell, and he reassured the city that the administration was ready for the service disruptions that bad weather can bring”.
For those of us who still hew to the old meaning, that’s quite a visual image.
About the verb don. From NOAD:
— verb don-2 : [with object] put on (an item of clothing): in the locker room the players donned their football jerseys. ORIGIN late Middle English: contraction of do on. Compare with doff.
— verb doff: [with object] [a] remove (an item of clothing): he had doffed tie and jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. [b] take off or raise (one’s hat) as a greeting or token of respect: the manager doffed his hat to her. ORIGIN late Middle English: contraction of do off. Compare with don.
Both of these verbs are infrequent, marked in register, in contrast with everyday put on and take off. As a result, it may be unclear to someone observing the verb don whether it refers to the action (‘put on’) or to the resultant state of the action (‘wear’). Hence the new meaning of don (which doesn’t seem to have made it into dictionaries yet).
February 19, 2026 at 11:05 am |
It had not occurred to me that don and doff were contractions of “do on/off” until I read The Lord of the Rings, in which Tolkien wrote that Aragorn “did off the star of Elendil” so that he would not appear to be assuming the kingship prematurely.