did

Verb

do (third-person singular simple present does, present participle doing, simple past did, past participle done)

1. (auxiliary) A syntactic marker in a question whose main verb is not another auxiliary verb or be.
   • Do you go there often?
2. (auxiliary) A syntactic marker in negations with the indicative and imperative moods.
   • I do not go there often.
3. (auxiliary) A syntactic marker for emphasis with the indicative, imperative, and subjunctive moods.
   • But I do go sometimes.
4. (auxiliary, pro-verb) A syntactic marker that refers back to an earlier verb and allows the speaker to avoid repeating the verb; in most dialects, not used with auxiliaries such as be, though it can be in AAVE.
   • I play tennis; she does too.
5. (auxiliary, informal, interrogative, modal) Should; ought to (especially in respect of a task to be repeated).
   • Do I just call every number on the list each time?

   Synonyms:

   should

6. (auxiliary, dialectal) Used to form the present progressive of verbs.
   • ...An' the dogs do bark, an' the rooks be a-vled to the elems high and dark, an' the water do roar at mill.1844, William Barnes, “Evenén in the Village”, in Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect

See all 49 meanings of do