Undone

How to spell undone

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce undone

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does undone mean?

1. adjectiveUnfastened, untied, or no longer held together.
2. adjectiveNot finished or not yet carried out.
3. adjectiveRuined, destroyed, or brought to disaster.

Undone in a sentence

• He noticed that his shoelace was undone as he crossed the road.

• She left the office with several urgent tasks still undone.

• The gambler was undone by his mounting debts.

• The top button of her coat had come undone in the wind.

• The report sat undone on his desk for another week.

• A single careless email left her career all but undone.

Where does undone come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English, where the verb 'undon' was formed from the prefix 'un-', meaning 'reversal' or 'the opposite of', joined to 'don', the ancestor of the modern verb 'do'. From its earliest use it meant to reverse an action that had already been completed, so to unfasten, untie, or cancel something. The same productive 'un-' prefix sits at the front of countless English words such as 'untie', 'unlock', and 'unfold', and 'done' is simply the familiar past participle of 'do'. By the medieval period the word had also taken on a darker figurative sense, describing a person who has been ruined or brought to disaster, as in being 'undone' by debt. The spelling is entirely transparent once you see the two native pieces, which is why most writers find it straightforward.

How the word is built

• un- (reversal, opposite of)
• done (past participle of do)