Word.ws English Dictionary

do the decent thing

do the decent thing verb: to take the most honorable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests.

Verb

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.
    • Mr Speaker, will the Prime Minister do the decent thing and resign?

Synonyms of do the decent thing

Forms of do the decent thing

third-person singular presentdoes the decent thing
present participledoing the decent thing
pastdid the decent thing
past participledone the decent thing

Questions about do the decent thing

What does do the decent thing mean?
Do the decent thing means to take the most honorable or appropriate course of action, even if is not necessarily in the person's own interests.
What part of speech is do the decent thing?
Do the decent thing is a verb.
What is the past tense of do the decent thing?
The past tense of do the decent thing is did the decent thing.

Words near do the decent thing in the dictionary

  1. do svidaniia
  2. do svidaniya
  3. do svidanya
  4. do tell
  5. do the dash
  6. do the decent thing
  7. do the deed
  8. do the dirty on
  9. do the dishes
  10. do the Dutch
  11. do the handsome thing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: do the decent thing (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.

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