donner

donner verb: to beat up; clobber; thrash.

Verb

donner (third-person singular simple present donners, present participle donnering, simple past and past participle donnered)

(South Africa, slang) To beat up; clobber; thrash.
- Ag pleez Deddy won't you take us to the wrestling / We wanna see an ou called Sky High Lee / When he fights Willie Liebenberg / There's gonna be a murder / 'Cos Willie's gonna donner that blerrie yankee1962, Jeremy Taylor, “Ag Pleez Deddy”
- They went into the pub and started a fight. One that was just bad enough for someone to call the boere. When the gattas arrived they got donnered for their trouble.2005, Al Lovejoy, Acid Alex, Zebra Press, published 2005, →ISBN, page 167

donner (plural donners)

One who dons (something).
- O sweet little wearers of round hats. O dainty donners of Mauve silks and sprigged muslins—I hear a voice saying—there was a time when all the ladies of Rome, with perfumes and fans, went daily to the Colosseum to see gigantic slaves chop each other to pieces; […]1861 June 29, “Old Rome in Crystal”, in Charles Dickens, editor, All the Year Round. […], volume V, number 114, London: […] Messrs. Chapman and Hall, […], page 324, column 2
- “Gathered in circle, / With clangour of armour, / Our youth struck the mighty / Donners of armlets: / Limbs dead and bloody / Glutted the death-birds. / Who shall avenge now / The mighty belt-wearer?”1871, Robert [Williams] Buchanan, The Land of Lorne, Including the Cruise of the “Tern” to the Outer Hebrides. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 186

Donner

ನೀಡುಗ, ಕೊಟ್ಟವ, ಕೊಡುಗ, ಕೊಡುಗೆ ನೀಡಿದವ

His beautiful tenor has won many friends for him both among his fellow donners of khaki and those civilians who have heard him.1918 August 31, “[The Concert & Opera Field] Singer in the Ranks”, in The Billboard, volume XXX, number 35, Cincinnati, Oh.: The Billboard...
Of the seven new donners of the khaki, six were old service men.1919 July 3, “Seven Recruits Join Army on Wednesday”, in The Atlanta Constitution, volume LII, number 18, Atlanta, Ga., page twenty:
“Happy are only the donners of the waist-cloth whose minds always delight in meditating on the texts of the Upanishads.”1922, Yogiraja’s Disciple Maitreya (Buddha-Gaya), Discovery of the Universal Religion through a Comparative Theology Based on the Faiths of...
Early donners of dinner-jackets, décolleté, and toppers were about Park Avenue.1932 March, Philip Wylie, “Angela regrets an Invitation: A story of the Wild Wallaces”, in Edwin Balmer, editor, Redbook Magazine, New...

Verb
third-person singular present	donners
present participle	donnering
past participle	donnered
past	donnered
Noun
plural	donners
Proper noun
alternative form	Donder
alternative form	Dunder

From Afrikaans donder (“thrash”), from Dutch donder (“thunder”). Doublet of thunder.

From don + -er.

First attested in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. Named from Dutch donder (“thunder”), and perhaps influenced by the German form Donner.

What does donner mean?: Donner means to beat up; clobber; thrash.
What is donner in Kannada?: Donner in Kannada is ನೀಡುಗ, ಕೊಟ್ಟವ, ಕೊಡುಗ. See Donner meaning in Kannada.
How do you use donner in a sentence?: His beautiful tenor has won many friends for him both among his fellow donners of khaki and those civilians who have heard him.
What part of speech is donner?: Donner can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
What is the past tense of donner?: The past tense of donner is donnered.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Donner.wav.

Cite this entry: “donner.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/donner. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.