Undoes

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ʌnˈdʌz/

Definitions

1. To reverse the effects of an action and return to a prior condition
2. To cancel a previous action so that the original state is restored
3. To revert something to the way it was before a modification took place

Etymology: "Undoes" is the third-person singular form of "undo," so the story belongs to the verb itself. Its roots go back to the Old English "ondōn," which combined the prefix "on-" (a reversing sense, akin to modern "un-") with "dōn," meaning "to do." The Old English prefix and the "un-" we use today were once distinct forms, but they came to be pronounced and written alike, and the verb ended up meaning the exact reverse of its parts: to take apart what has been done. The verb's ancestry runs back to a Proto-West Germanic form, "*andadōn," and it has relatives across the North Sea. Modern Dutch "ontdoen" and West Frisian "ûntdwaan" carry the same idea, so the reversing sense of "undo" is a shared inheritance from the Germanic languages rather than an English invention.

Synonyms: reverses, cancels, removes, nullifies, overturns

Antonyms: executes, completes, achieves, performs, fulfills