"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|do<does,,did,done> the decent thing}} 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) To take the most honourable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-do_the_decent_thing-en-verb-2rKdcLJF Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for do the decent thing meaning in English (1.3kB)

{
  "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": "do<does,,did,done> the decent thing"
      },
      "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": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Mr Speaker, will the Prime Minister do the decent thing and resign?",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take the most honourable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "id": "en-do_the_decent_thing-en-verb-2rKdcLJF",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To take the most honourable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "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": "do<does,,did,done> the decent thing"
      },
      "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"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Mr Speaker, will the Prime Minister do the decent thing and resign?",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take the most honourable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To take the most honourable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "do the decent thing"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.