Word.ws English Dictionary

done well by doing good

done well by doing good is the past participle 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 done well by doing good

What is done well by doing good the past participle of?
Done well by doing good is the past participle of do well by doing good.

Words near done well by doing good in the dictionary

  1. done up
  2. done up like a dog's dinner
  3. done up like a kipper
  4. done violence to
  5. done well
  6. done well by doing good
  7. done well for oneself
  8. done with mirrors
  9. done without
  10. done wonders
  11. done-zo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: done 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “done well by doing good.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/done_well_by_doing_good. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.