Word.ws English Dictionary

do what it says on the tin

do what it says on the tin is the alternative form of do exactly what it says on the tin.

Meaning of do exactly what it says on the tin

Verb

do exactly what it says on the tin (third-person singular simple present does exactly what it says on the tin, present participle doing exactly what it says on the tin, simple past did exactly what it said on the tin, past participle done exactly what it said on the tin)

  1. (Ireland, UK, idiomatic) To do what is described or what one would expect, with no further explanation needed.
    • So if you've got wood to stain and you want it to dry quickly, use Ronseal Quick-Drying Woodstain. It does exactly what it says on the tin.1994, Liz Whiston et al., Ronseal TV advertisement

Forms of do what it says on the tin

third-person singular presentdoes what it says on the tin
present participledoing what it says on the tin
pastdid what it said on the tin
past participledone what it said on the tin

Questions about do what it says on the tin

What is do what it says on the tin the alternative form of?
Do what it says on the tin is the alternative form of do exactly what it says on the tin.

Words near do what it says on the tin in the dictionary

  1. do well
  2. do well by doing good
  3. do well for oneself
  4. do what
  5. do what I say, not what I do
  6. do what it says on the tin
  7. do what one does
  8. do what you will
  9. do with
  10. do with mirrors
  11. do without

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: do what it says on the tin (page history and authors); do exactly what it says on the tin (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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Cite this entry: “do what it says on the tin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/do_what_it_says_on_the_tin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.