fordo

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fordo

/fɔː(ɹ)ˈduː/ UK

Rhymes with -uː

Where it comes from

From Middle English fordon, from Old English fordōn (“to undo, bring to naught, ruin, destroy, abolish, kill, corrupt, seduce, defile”), from Proto-West Germanic *fradōn (“to ruin, destroy”), equivalent to for- + do. Cognate with Saterland Frisian ferdwo (“to waste, consume”), West Frisian ferdwaan (“to waste”), Dutch verdoen (“to kill, waste”), German Low German verdoon (“to waste, consume”), German vertun (“to waste, spend, consume”).

verb fordoes · fordoing · fordid · fordone · foredo

obsolete To kill, destroy. […]This doth betoken / The coarse they follow did with desperate hand / Foredoe it’s own life.
obsolete To annul, abolish, cancel. And that penaūce god hath ordeyned yow for that dede / that he that ye shalle most truste to of ony man alyue / he shalle leue yow ther ye shalle be slayne / Me forthynketh said kynge Pellinore that this shalle me betyde but god may fordoo wel desteny
archaic To do away with, undo; to ruin. And yet there is at Alexandria a fair church, all white without paintures; and so be all the other churches that were of the Christian men, all white within, for the Paynims and the Saracens made them white for to fordo the images of saints that were painted on the walls.
archaic To overcome with fatigue; to exhaust. worn faces (...) / they wander, wander, / Or sit foredone and desolately ponder / Through sleepless hours with heavy drooping head.

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MLA

"fordo." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/fordo. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

fordo. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/fordo

Chicago

"fordo." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/fordo.

BibTeX

@misc{fordo_2026,
  title = {fordo},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/fordo},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}