Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a Spaniard.

1606		Marston The Fawne II i: Good Don: ha patience, you are not the only Cuckold.
1610		Jonson Alchemist III iii: A doughty don is taken with my Dol.
c.1617		Fletcher Chances V iii: I drew the Lady Unto my Kinsman’s here, only to torture Your Don-ships for a day or two.
c.1626		Dick of Devonshire in Bullen II (1883) I ii: I’de drink a health to all the Dons in Sherryes And cry a pox upon ’em.
c.1632		R. Brome A Novella III i: My Don / My hot Goat-liver’d Diego.
1646		J. Howell Familiar Letters (1737) II 3 Feb. 405: Don and Hans, I hear, are absolutely accorded.
1652		Laughing Mercury 9-18 Sept. 181: For which kindenesse the Fiery Dons will a little forbeare to Persecute us in their bloody Inquisition.
1677		Behn Rover II i: Will. A plague on your Dons, if they fight no better they’ll ne’re recover Flanders.
1691		J. Wilson Belphegor III iii: A beggarly Don.
1697		Behn False Count II ii: If I do not fix you with a Don better than Don De’ll [...] or Don Quixote, let me be hang’d up for the sign of the Black Boy [...] at a Spanish Inn dore.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 98: And next above the scarlet Don, / Queen Anne and Gallick Nero.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 318: At Cadiz he fought with a Spaniard, who attack’d him one Day when he went ashore, left the Don dead on the Place, and made his Escape.
1754		J. Gay Rehearsal at Goatham I x: At Tables, Don! was ever such a Sot! / His money squander’d, and his Wife forgot!
1766		Midnight Spy 146: That Don with the full perriwig, and perhaps a very empty scull, has the air of a physician.
1772		G. Stevens ‘A New Roast Beef’ Songs Comic and Satyrical 114: The Spaniards once strove, by the strength of their Guns, / To make us keep Lent, and to turn our Girls Nuns, / But we still roast our Beef, for we basted the Dons.
1782		G. Parker Humorous Sketches 140: Whene’er the Dons, we catch at sea / Being very rich, all sides agree.
1790		J. Freeth ‘Jolly Anglers’ Political Songster 73: The Dutch shall in their backs be spear’d, / And with our hooks the Dons we’ll beard.
c.1800		‘Naval Victories’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 164: We beat Dons, Monsieurs, & Mynheers to some tune.
1812		Mr. Lawson ‘A Chaunt’ in Egan Boxiana I 477: All nations came to claim the prize, / Amongst them many a don, sir.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel I 49: He walked in himself in cuerpo, as the Don says.
1836		M. Scott Cruise of the Midge II 157: This startled the Dons.
1840		R.H. Dana Two Years before the Mast (1992) 244: A tall, stately Don, with immense grey whiskers.
1855		C. Kingsley Westward Ho III 301: Does he think we are going to [...] run our noses at night – and dead up-wind, too – into the Dons’ mouth?
1898		H.H. Lewis A Gunner Aboard the ‘Yankee’ 167: The Spanish code had been secured. This means that the Dons will be compelled to adopt an entirely new code.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 250: Speaking Spanish he was, of course, and dignified like all those Dons.
1929		A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 109: Somewhere in Mexican Tom’s family, assuredly, was a don of old Castile.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

2. a clever or outstanding person, a distinguished individual, a leader.

1608		Dekker Lanthorne and Candle-Light Ch. 2: Don Lucifer (being the Justice for that County, where the Brimstone mines are,) had better dooings, and more rapping at his gates, than all the Doctors and Empericall Quack-saluers of ten cities haue at theirs in a great Plague-time.
1640		H. Glapthorne Wit in a Constable I i: I doe commend thee my deare Don.
1665		Dryden Indian Emperor Epilogue, 21: For the great dons of wit – Phoebus gives them full privilege alone, To damn all others, and cry up their own .
1672		M. Atkins Cataplus 54: There was a troop of Grecian Dons, / Achilles, and his Myrmidons, / Ajax that was in battel haughty, / And ?lysses in counsel crafty.
1696		J. Dunton Night-Walker Oct. 5: Calling them the Grave Dons with mighty Beards, whose Chins were encompassed with Wisdom.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 10: The Cholerick Old Don her Father.
1746		W. Dunkin Parson’s Revels (2010) 80: He said; the very Name afresh / Dismay’d the Don.
1774		Foote Cozeners in Works (1799) II 154: Some of the old dons should be crusty.
1794		Sporting Mag. Aug. IV 288/2: Where low devils, and rich dons, and high rips may be found.
1814		Morn. Post (London) 18 Nov. 3/5: I will make him know that Blackey is the Don, barring one —tom crib, the Championof England.
1822		Bell’s Life in London 7 July 2/2: All this, and much more [...] was neded before I could expect to cut a figure among the dons of St James’s Street or pass for anything but a novice.
1833		‘The Chummies’ Society’ Fun Alive O! 54: I dined with the rest of the dons, / Vot belongs to the Chummies Society.
1836		A. Thornton Don Juan II 11: The beloved brick-kilns of Islington [...] blessed the anxious eyes of the returning Cockney, and his new friend the Don.
1846		New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 18: Beauteous are the females that mix with the dons and strollers of the west-end.
1850		Manchester Spy (NH) 2 Nov. n.p.: ‘How these tramps rouges [rogues] put the leek [lick] into you dons’.
1856		J. Strang Glasgow and Its Clubs 154: The high and mighty commercial dons generally occupied houses in Virginia-street [...] and St. Andrew’s.
1859		Bell’s Life in Tasmania 12 July 2/6: [of a racehorse] [N]o one [...] could fancy him the ‘don’ of Australasia on seeing the wretched plight he was in on landing here.
1863		Story of a Lancashire Thief 8: I heard from a chum, who was fly to every move on the board, that a regular don was likely to turn up in Manchester; a swell prig who had hooked it from London to escape being slowed.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		E.V. Page ‘’Arry’ 🎵 I say, ’Arry / By Jove! you are a don.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 22: I soon picked it up, getting quite a don at it.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 22 Apr. 1/5: There is a boat builder in a waterside suburb who is a don at getting Government patronage.
1896		Tresor & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Among My Knick-knacks 🎵 Of it's buildings grand and tall I have taken nearly all / I’m such a don with the camera.
1901		H. Lawson ‘“G.S.”’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 2: By the time they touch at Cape Town he’s a don at peeling spuds.
1904		H. Champion ‘Yer ’At Don’t Fit Yer Very Well’ 🎵 Yer do look a don with your new suit on.
1904		Marvel 12 Nov. 11: He’s a don at cracking ‘cribs’.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 7 Jan. 4/8: Up at Gingin I was counted quite a don at shearing time.
c.1911		H. Champion ‘Good Old Yorkshire Pudding’ [monologue] At eating she’s a don / Yorkshire pudden is the stuff she’s gone fair barmy on.
1913		Williams & Godfrey [perf. Billy Williams] ‘All the ladies fell in love with Sandy’ 🎵 No mistake about it Sandy looked a perfect don.
1977		B. Davidson Collura (1978) 15: He was a young Mafioso, trying to ‘make his bones’ [...] by taking on a major narcotics buy, an assignment the dons and caporegimes would not touch.
2000		Guardian Editor 7 Jan. 13: He’d been in the habit of wandering Greenwich Village in a bathrobe, talking to himself – a real-life don in need of therapy.

3. (W.I./UK black teen, also donette) a respected boss or leader, the master or mistress of a situation; cite 2001 refers to a leading prison drug dealer.

1849		Paul Pry 5 Mar. 3/1: Paul Advises [...] G—ge H—ll [...] when he visits ‘Northover’s Assembly Rooms,’ not to jump about the room and fancy that he is the ‘don of the assembly’.
1873		C. Rampini Letters from Jamaica 124: Don Hawk spring ’pon Ground Dove and [...] mash him up wid him beak.
1970		E. Tidyman Shaft 105: If a Mafia don was breaking his kid into the business [...] he would break him in through the Harvard Business School.
1996		Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘2001’ 🎵 The Dogg is the Don like killer Corleone.
1997		‘Q’ Deadmeat 241: Lords, dons, donettes.
1998		Source Oct. 192: They also know I treat everybody with respect. That’s why I’m the Don.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 59/2: don, the n. an inmate in possession of a steady supply of drugs for sale to other inmates, the drug-dealer: ‘Oh, he’s the don, he’s got all the good woollies.
2003		Dizzee Rascal ‘Wot U On?’ 🎵 You could be a dapper, you could be a don.
2010		D. Whish-Wilson Line of Sight [ebook] ‘[W]hy would he be holding money for the Northbridge dons?’.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 70: Ted was more artful dodger than Don of Dons.
2012		Jamaican Observer 14 Oct. 🌐 The ‘don’ culture was still alive and strong [...] girls, before and after sexual demands are made by ‘dons’, usually go through a period of trauma.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] Fuck that, I’m a muhfuckin! Don.
2016		Skepta ‘Lyrics’ 🎵 I’m a don, lyrically gone / You want to clash but you’re gonna get banged on.
2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles : He had me arrange a meeting and he wanted it don-to-don.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 54: Mixed race don with a lisp and eyes like splinters of broken mirror.