| / English Dictionary |
UNDONE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Not done
Example:
the work could be done or undone and nobody cared
Classified under:
Similar:
unfinished (not brought to an end or conclusion)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Thrown into a state of disorganization or incoherence
Example:
price programs became unstuck because little grain was available
Synonyms:
undone; unstuck
Classified under:
Similar:
disorganised; disorganized (lacking order or methodical arrangement or function)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Not fastened or tied or secured
Example:
his shoelaces were undone
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unfastened (not closed or secured)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Doomed to extinction
Synonyms:
done for; ruined; sunk; undone; washed-up
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unsuccessful (not successful; having failed or having an unfavorable outcome)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past participle of the verb undo
Context examples:
Here was something undone.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
And Kamo-tah said, 'Go thou to Nulato and get food, but say no word of what has befallen me. And when I have eaten, and am grown well and strong, I will kill this bear. Then will I return in honor to Nulato, and no man may laugh and say Kamo-tah was undone by a bear.'
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
She did her best, she asked advice of Mrs. Cornelius, she racked her brain to remember what Hannah did that she left undone, she reboiled, resugared, and restrained, but that dreadful stuff wouldn't 'jell'.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
But in this case, Anne had left nothing for advice to do; and though Lady Russell, as satisfied as ever with her own discretion, never wished the past undone, she began now to have the anxiety which borders on hopelessness for Anne's being tempted, by some man of talents and independence, to enter a state for which she held her to be peculiarly fitted by her warm affections and domestic habits.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Almost unconsciously she had now undone the parcel he had just put into her hand, and seeing before her, in all the niceness of jewellers' packing, a plain gold chain, perfectly simple and neat, she could not help bursting forth again, Oh, this is beautiful indeed!
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved upon quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself—and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone else?
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I tell you, lad, that I am all undone, like a fretted bow-string.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“What have you done!” said her mother, “but no one must know about it, so you must keep silence; what is done can’t be undone; we will make him into puddings.”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said:—"It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now; I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John."
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
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