MEANING
1. To reverse an action or remove its effect, as far as that is possible.
2. To release a fastening, or become open or loose at a fastening.
3. To destroy someone’s prospects, reputation, security, or ability to succeed.
Use it for
describing an attempt to reverse damage; acknowledging that a loss cannot be reversed; showing someone trying to take back an earlier actionConnects irreversible loss with reversal, personal downfall, and emotional collapse without treating those meanings as identical. Writing functions: Ruin / Desolation.
Words that belong together
- undo the damage
- undo a mistake
- cannot be undone
On the page
He could repair the door, but he could not undo the silence that followed.
Deleting the message did nothing to undo what she had read.
She undid the ribbon and found his spectacles inside the box.
The buckle came undone as he lifted the coffin’s empty carrying strap.
The ambition that had built the estate eventually undid its owner.
Word forms
- Base
- undo
- Past tense
- undid
- Past participle
- undone
- Present participle
- undoing
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- undo
- Present continuous
- am/is/are undoing
- Present perfect
- have/has undone
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been undoing
- Past
- undid
- Past continuous
- was/were undoing
- Past perfect
- had undone
- Past perfect continuous
- had been undoing
- Future
- will undo
- Future continuous
- will be undoing
- Future perfect
- will have undone
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been undoing
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Irregular verb: undo, undoes, undid, undone, undoing. Usually transitive; come undone describes becoming unfastened or losing composure. Undone is not a separate canonical word here. Register: neutral. Commonness: common; ruin and composure uses often literary (dictionary-informed qualitative editorial estimate; not a measured frequency).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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