Word.ws English Dictionary

doing well by doing good

doing well by doing good is the present participle and gerund of do well by doing good.

Meaning of do well by doing good

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To achieve social acceptance or financial success as a result of behaving in a benevolent or charitable manner.
    • Ev'ry evening you will find him / Around our neighborhood / It's the old dope peddler / Doing well by doing good1954, Tom Lehrer, “The Old Dope Peddler”, in Songs by Tom Lehrer (LP record), Lehrer Records, Track 2

Questions about doing well by doing good

What is doing well by doing good the present participle and gerund of?
Doing well by doing good is the present participle and gerund of do well by doing good.

Words near doing well by doing good in the dictionary

  1. doing tricks on it
  2. doing unto others
  3. doing up
  4. doing violence to
  5. doing well
  6. doing well by doing good
  7. doing well for oneself
  8. doing with mirrors
  9. doing without
  10. doing wonders
  11. doingness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing well by doing good (page history and authors); do well by doing good (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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