Doff

is do-off, as “Doff your hat.” So Don is do-on, as “Don your clothes.” Dup is do-up, as “Dup the door” (q.v.).

“Doff thy barness, youth,

And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.”

Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, v 3.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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