don't tread on me
don't tread on me phrase: a slogan, associated during the American Revolutionary War with freedom from British rule, and in more recent years with libertarianism and anti-government sentiments.
Phrase
don't tread on me
- A slogan, associated during the American Revolutionary War with freedom from British rule, and in more recent years with libertarianism and anti-government sentiments.
Forms of don't tread on me
| alternative form | dont tread on me |
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Origin of don't tread on me
Calque of Late Latin nōlī mē tangere (literally “do not touch me”), from John 20:17 in the Bible. The phrase was initially rendered as dont tread on me, without apostrophe, as dont was then an accepted contraction of do not. In some later versions, due to standards for apostrophes becoming more strict since the 18th century, the first word was changed to don't.
Questions about don't tread on me
- What does don't tread on me mean?
- Don't tread on me means a slogan, associated during the American Revolutionary War with freedom from British rule, and in more recent years with libertarianism and anti-government sentiments.
- What part of speech is don't tread on me?
- Don't tread on me is a phrase.
Words near don't tread on me in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: don't tread on me (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-don't tread on me.wav.
Cite this entry: “don't tread on me.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/don%27t_tread_on_me. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.