Word.ws English Dictionary

doing exactly what it says on the tin

doing exactly what it says on the tin is the present participle and gerund 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

Questions about doing exactly what it says on the tin

What is doing exactly what it says on the tin the present participle and gerund of?
Doing exactly what it says on the tin is the present participle and gerund of do exactly what it says on the tin.

Words near doing exactly what it says on the tin in the dictionary

  1. doing cartwheels
  2. doing cheetah flips
  3. doing credit
  4. doing down
  5. doing drugs
  6. doing exactly what it says on the tin
  7. doing for
  8. doing good
  9. doing gooseberry
  10. doing ill
  11. doing in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing exactly 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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