Word.ws English Dictionary

do well

do well verb: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see do, well.

Verb

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

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see do, well.
    • He tries hard to tell a good joke but, alas, he does not do it well.
    • I did well on the first part of the exam, but totally messed up on the essay question.
  2. (with infinitive) To take the prudent approach; to be advised.
    • He would do well to listen more carefully to his wife.
    • Those who possess skill in handicrafts must be prepared to turn that skill into numerous channels; and in most instances men of that stamp would do well to make up their minds before starting, that, in case of need, each must turn mason, joiner, blacksmith, or painter, as circumstances require; of...1858, John Willox, Practical hints to intending emigrants for our Australian colonies
  3. To benefit, to favour.
    • The company did well by his family after he died.
    • My next concern was, where I should lodge him ; and that I might do well by him, and yet be perfectly easy myself, I erected a tent for him in the vacant place between my two fortifications...1816, Daniel Defoe, The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
  4. To succeed; to flourish.
    • Prosimians make good use of shelves, ropes, or swings and do well with natural substrates—such as vines, bamboo, and branches—to climb on or jump among.1998, National Research Council, Commission on Life Sciences, Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, The Psychological Well-Being of Nonhuman Primates, →ISBN, page 58
    • Cabbage, lettuce, and other leafy vegetables will do well.1999, Peter Geiger, Ray Geiger, Sondra Duncan, Farmer's Almanac

Examples of do well in a sentence

  • Third, we may do well to put history of religion on the back-burner and focus for a while on the meanings of our texts.2008, Baruch J. Schwartz, Naphtali S. Meshel, Jeffrey Stackert, Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible, →ISBN, page 95:
  • Indeed, as Prahalad remarked, Drucker had a trait that all of us, whether we're college professors or corporate managers, would do well to emulate: communicating clearly.2011, Rick Wartzman, What Would Drucker Do Now?: Solutions to Today’s Toughest Challenges, →ISBN:
  • If she lived after him he would do well by her at his death.1879, A. Wilson Norris, Pennsylvania State Reports Containing Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Volume 4:
  • I wanted to do well for guys like Geoff Kloske and Matt Boyd and everyone at Riverhead Books who believed in me and convinced Penguin to write a check.2013, Matthew Berry, Fantasy Life, →ISBN:

Forms of do well

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

Questions about do well

What does do well mean?
Do well means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see do, well.
How do you use do well in a sentence?
Third, we may do well to put history of religion on the back-burner and focus for a while on the meanings of our texts.
What part of speech is do well?
Do well is a verb.
What is the past tense of do well?
The past tense of do well is did well.

Words near do well in the dictionary

  1. do unto others
  2. do unto others as you would have them do unto you
  3. do up
  4. do violence to
  5. do want
  6. do well
  7. do well by doing good
  8. do well for oneself
  9. do what
  10. do what I say, not what I do
  11. do what it says on the tin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: do well (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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