ado

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /əˈduː/ UK /əˈduː/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
fuss, trouble, or commotion over something trivial

Without further ado, she opened the meeting.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · fuss, trouble, or commotion... fuss commotion bustleto-dobother trouble stir

Opposites

calm tranquility

Appears in

Idioms (1)

See all

much ado about nothing
a great deal of fuss about something unimportant

Simplified etymology

Ado developed from Old Norse at do, literally “to do.” Its history parallels that of affair, from Old French à faire with the same literal meaning, and its sense of fuss or commotion survives in expressions such as “without more ado.”

Etymology

From Middle English ado ('action, business'), from a northern dialectal phrase at do ('to do'), where at is the Old Norse infinitive marker (equivalent to English 'to'), from Old Norse at + do.

at do Middle English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# ado

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /əˈduː/
**IPA (UK):** /əˈduː/

## Meanings
1. fuss, trouble, or commotion over something trivial

## Examples
- Without further ado, she opened the meeting.

## Synonyms
- fuss
- commotion
- bustle
- to-do
- bother
- trouble
- stir

## Antonyms
- calm
- tranquility

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: at do

## Etymology
From Middle English ado ('action, business'), from a northern dialectal phrase at do ('to do'), where at is the Old Norse infinitive marker (equivalent to English 'to'), from Old Norse at + do.

## AI Etymology
Ado is from Middle English ado ('action, business'), from a northern dialectal phrase at do ('to do'), where at is the Old Norse infinitive marker (equivalent to English 'to'), from Old Norse at + do. Important recorded forms include at do (Middle English). Morphologically, the word is a built form whose named elements carry part of the historical sense. The current sense covers fuss, trouble, or commotion over something trivial.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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