"what's good for the goose is good for the gander" meaning in English

See what's good for the goose is good for the gander in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Etymology: From earlier what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (1670s). Other early forms include “as deep drinketh the goose as the gander” (1562). Head templates: {{en-proverb}} what's good for the goose is good for the gander
  1. Literally, what is good for a female goose is equally good for a male goose (gander); or, what is good for a woman should be equally as good for a man.
    Sense id: en-what's_good_for_the_goose_is_good_for_the_gander-en-proverb-FDyXBemD Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Spanish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 48 52 Disambiguation of English proverbs: 52 48 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 49 51
  2. If something is good for one person, it should be equally as good for another person; someone who treats another in a certain way should not complain if the same is done to them. Translations (something good for one person should be equally as good for another person): ley pareja no es dura (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-what's_good_for_the_goose_is_good_for_the_gander-en-proverb-IvKa3atS Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Spanish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 48 52 Disambiguation of English proverbs: 52 48 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 49 51 Disambiguation of 'something good for one person should be equally as good for another person': 22 78
     
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  "etymology_text": "From earlier what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (1670s). Other early forms include “as deep drinketh the goose as the gander” (1562).",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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      "glosses": [
        "Literally, what is good for a female goose is equally good for a male goose (gander); or, what is good for a woman should be equally as good for a man."
      ],
      "id": "en-what's_good_for_the_goose_is_good_for_the_gander-en-proverb-FDyXBemD"
    },
    {
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      "glosses": [
        "If something is good for one person, it should be equally as good for another person; someone who treats another in a certain way should not complain if the same is done to them."
      ],
      "id": "en-what's_good_for_the_goose_is_good_for_the_gander-en-proverb-IvKa3atS",
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "22 78",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "something good for one person should be equally as good for another person",
          "word": "ley pareja no es dura"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Euphues and his England",
    "John Heywood",
    "John Lyly"
  ],
  "word": "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"
}

{
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    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
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    "Terms with Spanish translations"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From earlier what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (1670s). Other early forms include “as deep drinketh the goose as the gander” (1562).",
  "head_templates": [
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        "Literally, what is good for a female goose is equally good for a male goose (gander); or, what is good for a woman should be equally as good for a man."
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "If something is good for one person, it should be equally as good for another person; someone who treats another in a certain way should not complain if the same is done to them."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "something good for one person should be equally as good for another person",
      "word": "ley pareja no es dura"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Euphues and his England",
    "John Heywood",
    "John Lyly"
  ],
  "word": "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (9c82c1c and f1c2b61). 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.