Word.ws English Dictionary

do the trick

do the trick verb: to work; to be successful; to solve a problem; to be sufficient or adequate to fulfill a purpose.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To work; to be successful; to solve a problem; to be sufficient or adequate to fulfill a purpose.
    • [J]ust that little extra second did the trick.1885, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 3, in King Solomon's Mines
    • "It was the chemicals from this young man's airship that did the trick!"1921, Victor Appleton, chapter 24, in Tom Swift Among The Fire Fighters

Synonyms of do the trick

Forms of do the trick

third-person singular presentdoes the trick
present participledoing the trick
pastdid the trick
past participledone the trick

Questions about do the trick

What does do the trick mean?
Do the trick means to work; to be successful; to solve a problem; to be sufficient or adequate to fulfill a purpose.
What part of speech is do the trick?
Do the trick is a verb.
What is the past tense of do the trick?
The past tense of do the trick is did the trick.

Words near do the trick in the dictionary

  1. do the power of good
  2. do the proper thing
  3. do the right thing
  4. do the rounds
  5. do the talking
  6. do the trick
  7. do the washing-up
  8. do the work
  9. do time
  10. do to
  11. do to death

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: do the trick (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-do the trick.ogg.

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