ado

From Northern Middle English at do (“to do”), infinitive of do, don (“to do”), see do. Influenced by an Old Norse practice of marking the infinitive by using the preposition at, att (compare Danish at gå (“to go”)). More at at, do.

• IPA^(key): /əˈduː/

ado (uncountable)

1. trouble; troublesome business; fuss, commotion
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I scene i:

     Antonio:

     In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

     It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

     But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

     What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,

     I am to learn;

     And such a wantwit sadness makes of me,

     That I have much ado to know myself.

   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience:

     Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. “I am no such thing,” it would say; “I am myself, myself alone.”

Ado is mostly used in set phrases, such as without further ado or much ado about nothing.

• See also Thesaurus:commotion

• ado in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• AoD, DAO, DOA, Dao, ODA, Oda, dao, do a, oad, oda

Clipping of adolescent.

• IPA^(key): /a.do/

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ado m or f (plural ados)

1. (colloquial) teen, teenager