do away with

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

do away with (third-person singular simple present does away with, present participle doing away with, simple past did away with, past participle done away with)

1. (transitive, idiomatic, informal) To abolish; to put an end to; to eliminate.
   • 1887, Mabel Collins, The Illuminated Way: A Guide to Newophytes, 1903 ed., Yogi publications, New Jersey, p. 35:

     For no nearness in space, no closeness of relations, no daily intimacy, can do away with the inexorable laws which give the adept his seclusion.

   • 1922, Victor Appleton, chapter 7, in Tom Swift And His Electric Locomotive:

     Using electricity as motive power for railroads will do away with fuel trains, tenders, coal handling, water, and all that.

   • 1950 May, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 300:

     Centralised traffic control does away with intermediate operators over long stretches of line.

   • 2008 September 30, “Editorial: British schools' move towards scrapping homework is a progressive idea”, in Times of India:

     In most countries, homework has come to be an integral part of the schooling system. So much so that parents are suspicious when schools do away with homework.

2. (transitive, idiomatic, informal, euphemistic) To have someone killed.
   • 1988 December 19, William Styron, “Why Primo Levi Need Not Have Died”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     […] unless we can begin to understand that the vast majority of those who do away with themselves—and of those who attempt to do so—do not do it because of any frailty, and rarely out of impulse, but because they are in the grip of an illness that causes almost unimaginable pain.

Translations

See also

• get rid of
• fordo