Word.ws English Dictionary

does by halves

does by halves is the third-person singular simple present indicative of do by halves.

Meaning of do by halves

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To perform (a task, etc) partially or incompletely; to do (something) inadequately, halfheartedly, or shoddily.
    • [A] pedestrian tour of Europe could not be complete without them. Of course that decided me at once to see them, for I never allow myself to do things by halves, or in a slurring, slipshod way.1880, Mark Twain, chapter 30, in A Tramp Abroad

Questions about does by halves

What is does by halves the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Does by halves is the third-person singular simple present indicative of do by halves.

Words near does by halves in the dictionary

  1. does bird
  2. does bits
  3. does business
  4. does by
  5. does by half-measures
  6. does by halves
  7. does cartwheels
  8. does cheetah flips
  9. does credit
  10. does Dolly Parton sleep on her back
  11. does down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: does by halves (page history and authors); do by halves (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: “does by halves.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/does_by_halves. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.