Word.ws English Dictionary

do by

do by verb: to perform on behalf of someone or with someone in mind; to behave in a manner befitting someone.

Verb

do by (third-person singular simple present does by, present participle doing by, simple past did by, past participle done by)

  1. (informal, usually) To perform on behalf of someone or with someone in mind; to behave in a manner befitting someone.
    • I've tried hard to do right by him. Even so, he continues to do badly by me.
    • Do as you would be done by.

Forms of do by

third-person singular presentdoes by
present participledoing by
pastdid by
past participledone by

Questions about do by

What does do by mean?
Do by means to perform on behalf of someone or with someone in mind; to behave in a manner befitting someone.
What part of speech is do by?
Do by is a verb.
What is the past tense of do by?
The past tense of do by is did by.

Words near do by in the dictionary

  1. do battle
  2. do bears shit in the woods
  3. do bird
  4. do bits
  5. do business
  6. do by
  7. do by half-measures
  8. do by halves
  9. do cartwheels
  10. do cheetah flips
  11. do credit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: do by (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “do by.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/do_by. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.