Word.ws English Dictionary

doing a never

doing a never is the present participle and gerund of do a never.

Meaning of do a never

Verb

do a never (third-person singular simple present does a never, present participle doing a never, simple past did a never, past participle done a never)

  1. (UK, dated, slang) To mess about; to idle instead of working.
    • The Chief Buffer has got a howl on now because he got a blast from Torps, as so many of the part of ship hands were doing a never on the messdecks instead of working the main derrick.1943, Robert Burgess, Roland Blackburn, We Joined the Navy

Questions about doing a never

What is doing a never the present participle and gerund of?
Doing a never is the present participle and gerund of do a never.

Words near doing a never in the dictionary

  1. doing a little bit of trolling
  2. doing a little trolling
  3. doing a lot of work
  4. doing a Melba
  5. doing a moonlight flit
  6. doing a never
  7. doing a number on
  8. doing a perish
  9. doing a power of good
  10. doing a runner
  11. doing a slow burn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing a never (page history and authors); do a never (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “doing a never.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doing_a_never. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.