Like the term don used for Roman Catholic priests, the term don derives from the Latin dominus, meaning "lord", and is a historical remnant of Oxford and Cambridge having started as ecclesiastical institutions in the Middle Ages.
[3][4] In other Canadian institutions, such as Huron College and the University of Toronto, a don is a resident assistant, typically an upper-year student paid a stipend to act as an advisor to and supervisor of the students in a university residence.
[7] Teachers at Radley, a boys-only boarding-only public school modelled after Oxford colleges of the early 19th century, are known to boys as "dons".
Like the don used for Roman Catholic priests, this usage derives from the Latin dominus, meaning "lord", a historical remnant of Oxford and Cambridge having started as ecclesiastical institutions in the Middle Ages.
The particular literary application to poets is due to Edmund Spenser's use of "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled.