Dos

How to spell dos

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dos

What does dos mean?

1. nounPlural of 'do': organised social occasions such as parties or celebrations.
2. nounIn the phrase 'dos and don'ts': the actions that are recommended or permitted.

Dos in a sentence

• The office throws two big dos every year, one in summer and one in December.

• The induction pack lists the dos and don'ts for working safely on site.

• All the leaving dos were held in the same function room down the road.

• New tenants get a leaflet of dos and don'ts about recycling and noise.

Where does dos come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This little word is simply the plural of the noun 'do', which itself grew out of the very old English verb 'do', traceable to the Old English 'don', meaning 'to perform' or 'to put into action'. That verb has been at the heart of English since Anglo-Saxon times and shares a common Germanic ancestry with Dutch 'doen' and German 'tun'. By the twentieth century the noun 'do' had come to mean an organised social occasion, a party or gathering, especially in British usage, the idea being an event that people 'put on' or 'do'. The plural causes the spelling worry: because the singular ends in a vowel sound, writers are unsure whether to add a plain 's', an 'es', or an apostrophe, and the bare 'dos' is the standard modern choice. The same uncertainty surrounds the fixed phrase 'dos and don'ts', where 'dos' simply means the things one ought to do.

How the word is built

• do (the noun, from the verb do)
• -s (plural)

Words that sound like dos

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• dues: Regular fees or charges payable for membership of an organisation.