Undo

How to spell undo

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce undo

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does undo mean?

1. verbTo reverse or cancel the effect of something that has been done.
2. verbTo unfasten, open, or loosen something that has been tied or buttoned.

Undo in a sentence

• You can undo the last edit by pressing the keyboard shortcut.

• She struggled to undo the tight knot in the shoelace.

• Once the contract is signed, there is no way to undo the agreement.

• He had to undo the top button after the heavy meal.

Where does undo come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, formed in Old English as 'undon', combining the reversive prefix 'un-' (meaning 'to reverse or cancel an action') with 'don', the ancestor of the modern verb 'do'. The prefix 'un-' here is the same one that gives 'untie', 'unlock' and 'unfold', and it has carried the sense of undoing or reversing since the earliest recorded English. The verb 'do' itself goes back to a Germanic root meaning 'to put' or 'to place', and 'undo' originally meant to reverse such a placing, hence its early senses of unfastening or opening. Over the centuries the word broadened from physical unfastening to the figurative sense of cancelling or ruining something. In the computer age it gained a fresh life as the standard command for reversing the last action, a meaning now familiar to almost every adult. Because it is built from two of the oldest and most ordinary English elements, its spelling is wholly transparent and has barely changed in a thousand years.

How the word is built

• un- (reverse, undo)
• do (verb, perform)