doit

• IPA^(key): /dɔɪt/

Borrowed from Middle Low German doyt, cognate with Middle Dutch duit. Doublet of thwaite.

doit (plural doits)

1. (historical) A small Dutch coin, equivalent to one-eighth of a stiver.
   • c. 1606, Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 4, Scene 12:

     most monster-like, be shown / For poor'st diminutives, for doits;

   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     '"You got a lot of gold off Mr. Beauclerc," says Glascock.
     '"Not a doit more than I wanted," says he, laughing again. "And who, pray, had a better right—did not I murder him?"

2. (archaic) A small amount; a bit, a jot.
   • 1819, — Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

     “Speak out, ye Saxon dogs — what bid ye for your worthless lives? — How say you, you of Rotherwood?” “Not a doit I,” answered poor Wamba.

   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 2 scene 2

     When / they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they / will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.

3. (music) In jazz music, a note that slides to an indefinite pitch chromatically upwards.
   • 1995, Music & Computers (volume 1, issues 2-4, page 57)

     Jazz symbols include many contoured articulations and inflections, such as doits, fall-offs, and scoops.

Borrowed from Scots doit, apparently a Scots cognate of dote.

doit (third-person singular simple present doits, present participle doiting, simple past and past participle doited)

1. (Scotland, rare) To stumble; to blunder.
   • 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner:

     I trembled with astonishment; and on my return from the small window went doiting in amongst the weaver's looms, tillI entangled myself, and could not get out again without working great deray amongst the coarse linen threads that stood in warp from one end of the apartment unto the other.

• IPA^(key): /dwa/

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophones: doigt, doigts, dois, doua, douas, douât

doit

1. third-person singular present indicative of devoir: must, has to

   Il doit aller en France un jour.

   He must go to France one day.

• dei
• deit
• doi

From Latin digitus.

doit m (oblique plural doiz or doitz, nominative singular doiz or doitz, nominative plural doit)

1. finger (appendage)

• Middle French: doigt
  • French: doigt
• Norman: dé (Jersey), deigt (Guernsey)
• Walloon: doet

• delet (colloquial)
• deuit (literary)
• deuet (literary)
• doet (colloquial)

• IPA^(key): /dɔi̯t/

doit

1. (literary) second-person singular imperfect/conditional of dod