To do away with something is to get rid of it completely. Abolish, in three plain words.
It is used about rules, customs, jobs and institutions, so doing away with a charge means removing it for good. The phrase always implies deliberate removal rather than something fading out. There is a darker and now old-fashioned sense meaning to kill somebody, which survives in detective fiction, where a character threatens to do away with a rival. Abolish and scrap are the formal and informal equivalents.
1phrasedo away withTo abolish or get rid of something entirely.
“They plan to do away with the entrance fee.”
Do away with is older than the Conquest. Old English onweġ dōn meant to get rid of, and the with was very likely there from the start, in its older sense of against.
Middle English
*awey don
English, today
do away with
Built from
Very likely a continuation of Old English onweġ dōn (“to get rid of”), via a Middle English awey don, oway don, don awey, and other forms. The preposition with was probably also already in use from the outset, given how its original meaning is “against” (still seen in e.g. argue with, withstand and have a fight with). The original meaning of the phrase was therefore on the lines of “to put away against (someone or something)” or “to make/cause (s.o./sth. to go) away”, which are long- senses of do.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Phrasal Verbs, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 23 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word