Verb

To put (something) down, to rest.

To attach or affix (something) to something else, or in or upon a certain place.

I have set my heart on running the marathon.

* Bible, Genesis iv. 15

The Lord set a mark upon Cain.

To put in a specified condition or state; to cause to be.

* Bible, Deuteronomy xxviii. 1

The Lord thy God will set thee on high.

* Bible, Matthew x. 35

I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.

* Coleridge

Every incident sets him thinking.

(dated) To cause to stop or stick; to obstruct; to fasten to a spot.

to set a coach in the mud

To determine or settle.

To adjust.

To punch (a nail) into wood so that its head is below the surface.

To arrange with dishes and cutlery.

To introduce or describe.

*

An incident which happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

To locate (a play, etc.); to assign a backdrop to.

To compile, to make (a puzzle or challenge).

This crossword was set by Araucaria.

To prepare (a stage or film set).

To fit (someone) up in a situation.

To arrange (type).

To devise and assign (work) to.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Peter Wilby)

, volume=189, issue=6, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Finland spreads word on schools , passage=Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting .}}

(volleyball) To direct (the ball) to a teammate for an attack.

To solidify.

To render stiff or solid; especially, to convert into curd; to curdle.

to set milk for cheese

Of a heavenly body, to disappear below the horizon of a planet, etc, as the latter rotates.

(bridge) To defeat a contract.

To begin to move; to go forth.

* c. 1599 , (William Shakespeare),

The king is set from London, and the scene is now transported, gentles, to Southampton

(of fruit) To be fixed for growth; to strike root; to begin to germinate or form.

* 1906 , Canada. Dept. of Agriculture. Fruit Branch, Fruit crop report

In the Annapolis Valley, in spite of an irregular bloom, the fruit has set well and has, as yet, been little affected by scab.

(intransitive, Southern US, Midwestern US, dialects) To sit (be in a seated position).

* , chapter=7

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.}}

To hunt game with the aid of a setter.

(hunting, ambitransitive) Of a dog, to indicate the position of game.

The dog sets the bird.

Your dog sets well.

(obsolete) To apply oneself; to undertake earnestly; to set out.

* Hammond

If he sets industriously and sincerely to perform the commands of Christ, he can have no ground of doubting but it shall prove successful to him.

(ambitransitive) To fit music to words.

* Dryden

Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.

(Shakespeare)

(ambitransitive) To place plants or shoots in the ground; to plant.

to set pear trees in an orchard

* Old proverb

Sow dry, and set wet.

To become fixed or rigid; to be fastened.

(Francis Bacon)

To have a certain direction of motion; to flow; to move on; to tend.

The current sets''' to the north; the tide '''sets to the windward.

To place or fix in a setting.

to set a precious stone in a border of metal

to set glass in a sash

* Dryden

And him too rich a jewel to be set / In vulgar metal for a vulgar use.

To put in order in a particular manner; to prepare.

to set (that is, to hone) a razor

to set a saw

To extend and bring into position; to spread.

to set the sails of a ship

To give a pitch to, as a tune; to start by fixing the keynote.

to set a psalm

(Fielding)

To reduce from a dislocated or fractured state.

to set a broken bone

(masonry) To lower into place and fix solidly, as the blocks of cut stone in a structure.

(obsolete) To wager in gambling; to risk.

* Shakespeare

I have set my life upon a cast, / And I will stand the hazard of the die.

To adorn with something infixed or affixed; to stud; to variegate with objects placed here and there.

* Dryden

High on their heads, with jewels richly set , / Each lady wore a radiant coronet.

* Wordsworth

pastoral dales thin set with modern farms

(obsolete) To value; to rate; used with at .

* Shakespeare

Be you contented, wearing now the garland, / To have a son set your decrees at naught.

* Shakespeare

I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

To establish as a rule; to furnish; to prescribe; to assign.

to set''' a good example; to '''set lessons to be learned

(Scotland) To suit; to become.

It sets him ill.

Verb

To divide a class group in a subject according to ability

* 2008 , Patricia Murphy, ?Robert McCormick, Knowledge and Practice: Representations and Identities

*:In setted' classes, students are brought together because they are believed to be of similar 'ability'. Yet, '''setted lessons are often conducted as though students are not only similar, but ''identical —in terms of ability, preferred learning style and pace of working.

* 2002 , Jo Boaler, Experiencing School Mathematics: Traditional and Reform Approaches and Their Impact on Student Learning

*:At Amber Hill, setting was a high-profile concept, and the students were frequently reminded of the set to which they belonged.

Verb

(auxiliary)

(auxiliary)

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.}}

(auxiliary)

* , chapter=7

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=“I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. […]”}}

(auxiliary)

To perform; to execute.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)

, volume=189, issue=2, page=48, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= The tao of tech , passage=The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing ",

(obsolete) To cause, make (someone) (do something).

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), ''(The Faerie Queene), II.vi:

Sometimes to doe him laugh, she would assay / To laugh at shaking of the leaues light, / Or to behold the water worke

* W. Caxton

My lord Abbot of Westminster did do shewe to me late certain evidences.

* Spenser

a fatal plague which many did to die

* Bible, 2 Cor. viii. 1

We do you to wit [i.e. we make you to know] of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia.

(transitive) To suffice.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.}}

* 1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)

"Here," she said, "take your old Bunny! He'll do to sleep with you!" And she dragged the Rabbit out by one ear, and put him into the Boy's arms.

To be reasonable or acceptable.

To have (as an effect).

To fare; to succeed or fail.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}

(chiefly in questions) To have as one's job.

To cook.

* , Three Men In a Boat

, passage=It seemed, from his account, that he was very good at doing scrambled eggs.}}

* {{quote-news, 1944, , , News from the Suburbs, Punch citation

, passage=We went down below, and the galley-slave did some ham and eggs, and the first lieutenant, who was aged 19, told me about Sicily, and time went like a flash.}}

* {{quote-book, 2005, Alan Tansley, The Grease Monkey, page=99, pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=V63jCdQpv2kC&pg=PA99

, passage=Next morning, they woke about ten o'clock, Kev, went for a shower while Alice, did some toast, put the kettle on, and when he came out, she went in.}}

To travel in, to tour, to make a circuit of.

* {{quote-book, 1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, edition=1957 ed., page=, pageurl=

, passage=We 'did ' London to our heart's content, thanks to Fred and Frank, and were sorry to go away,

* {{quote-book, 1892, James Batchelder, Multum in Parvo: Notes from the Life and Travels of James Batchelder, page=97 citation

, passage=After doing Paris and its suburbs, I started for London

* {{quote-news, 1968, July 22, Ralph Schoenstein, Nice Place to Visit, New York Magazine citation

, passage=No tourist can get credit for seeing America first without doing New York, the Wonderful Town, the Baghdad-on-Hudson, the dream in the eye of the Kansas hooker

To treat in a certain way.

* {{quote-news, 1894, , , , Harper's citation

, passage=They did me well, I assure you — uncommon well: Bellinger of '84; green chartreuse fit for a prince;

* 1928 , , "The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers", in (Lord Peter Views the Body) ,

Upon my word, although he [my host] certainly did me uncommonly well, I began to feel I'd be more at ease among the bushmen.

* {{quote-book, 1994, Jervey Tervalon, Understand This, page=50 citation

, passage="Why you gonna do me like that?" I ask. "Do what?" "Dog me."}}

To act or behave in a certain manner; to conduct oneself.

* Bible, 2 Kings xvii. 34

They fear not the Lord, neither do they after the law and commandment.

To spend (time) in jail.

To impersonate or depict.

(slang) To kill.

* '>citation

* {{quote-book, 2007, E.J. Churchill, page=153, pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=ytW6LcwIrXQC&pg=PA153, The Lazarus Code

, passage=The order came and I did him right there. The bullet went right where it was supposed to go.}}

(slang) To have sex with. (See also do it )

* {{quote-book, c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, section=Act IV, scene II, pageurl=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Tragedy_of_Titus_Andronicus

, passage=Demetrius'': "Villain, what hast thou done?"
''Aaron'': "That which thou canst not undo."
''Chiron'': "Thou hast undone our mother."
''Aaron : "Villain, I have done thy mother."}}

* {{quote-book, 1996, James Russell Kincaid, My Secret Life, page=81, pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=q2cQiUtWftwC&pg=PA82

, passage=

* {{quote-book, 2008, On the Line, Donna Hill, page=84 citation

, passage=The uninhibited woman within wanted to do him right there on the countertop, but I remained composed.}}

To cheat or swindle.

* De Quincey

He was not to be done , at his time of life, by frivolous offers of a compromise that might have secured him seventy-five per cent.

To convert into a certain form; especially, to translate.

(intransitive) To finish.

(UK, dated, intransitive) To work as a domestic servant (with for ).

* 1915 , Frank Thomas Bullen, Recollections

I've left my key in my office in Manchester, my family are at Bournemouth, and the old woman who does for me goes home at nine o'clock.

(archaic, dialectal, transitive, auxiliary) Used to form the present progressive of verbs.

* 1844 , William Barnes, Evenén in the Village , Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect:

...An' the dogs do''' bark, an' the rooks be a-vled to the elems high and dark, an' the water '''do roar at mill.

(stock exchange) To cash or to advance money for, as a bill or note.

(informal) To make or provide.

Do they do haircuts there?

Could you do me a burger with mayonnaise instead of ketchup?