"do the decent thing" meaning in English

See do the decent thing in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: does the decent thing [present, singular, third-person], doing the decent thing [participle, present], did the decent thing [past], done the decent thing [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|<does,,did,done>}} do the decent thing (third-person singular simple present does the decent thing, present participle doing the decent thing, simple past did the decent thing, past participle done the decent thing)
  1. (idiomatic, set phrase) To take the most honorable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: do the right thing
    Sense id: en-do_the_decent_thing-en-verb-WbtMZLE5 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "does the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "doing the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "did the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "done the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<does,,did,done>"
      },
      "expansion": "do the decent thing (third-person singular simple present does the decent thing, present participle doing the decent thing, simple past did the decent thing, past participle done the decent thing)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              36,
              55
            ]
          ],
          "text": "Mr Speaker, will the Prime Minister do the decent thing and resign?",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take the most honorable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "id": "en-do_the_decent_thing-en-verb-WbtMZLE5",
      "links": [
        [
          "set phrase",
          "set phrase"
        ],
        [
          "honorable",
          "honorable"
        ],
        [
          "appropriate",
          "appropriate"
        ],
        [
          "course of action",
          "course of action"
        ],
        [
          "necessarily",
          "necessarily"
        ],
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "set phrase",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, set phrase) To take the most honorable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "do the right thing"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "do the decent thing"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "does the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "doing the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "did the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "done the decent thing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<does,,did,done>"
      },
      "expansion": "do the decent thing (third-person singular simple present does the decent thing, present participle doing the decent thing, simple past did the decent thing, past participle done the decent thing)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              36,
              55
            ]
          ],
          "text": "Mr Speaker, will the Prime Minister do the decent thing and resign?",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take the most honorable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "set phrase",
          "set phrase"
        ],
        [
          "honorable",
          "honorable"
        ],
        [
          "appropriate",
          "appropriate"
        ],
        [
          "course of action",
          "course of action"
        ],
        [
          "necessarily",
          "necessarily"
        ],
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "set phrase",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, set phrase) To take the most honorable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "do the right thing"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "do the decent thing"
}

Download raw JSONL data for do the decent thing meaning in English (1.6kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.