Word.ws English Dictionary

stand to reason

Syllables: stand to rea·sonUK/ˌstænd tə ˈɹiːzn̩/US/ˌstænd tə ˈɹiz(ə)n/

stand to reason verb: to seem logical, rational, or reasonable; to make sense.

Verb

stand to reason (third-person singular simple present stands to reason, present participle standing to reason, simple past and past participle stood to reason)

  1. (idiomatic) To seem logical, rational, or reasonable; to make sense.
    • It stands to reason that because of the difference in climate the necessity for rugging a horse in Australia would vary considerably from that in cold countries like England […]1966, M[argaret] I. Clarke, Care of the Horse and Pony, San Francisco, Calif.: Tri-Ocean Books, →OCLC, page 45, column 1
    • But if the saying that those who want to govern, shouldn’t, applies here, does it really stand to reason that reluctant, brooding, can’t-be-bothered-to-say-goodbye-to-Ghost-the-good-boy types should?2019 May 5, Danette Chavez, “Campaigns are Waged On and Off the Game Of Thrones Battlefield (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 28 Jan 2021

Forms of stand to reason

third-person singular presentstands to reason
present participlestanding to reason
past participlestood to reason
paststood to reason

Origin of stand to reason

From stand (“(archaic or obsolete) to be consistent; to accord, agree”) + to + reason.

Words that rhyme with stand to reason

Questions about stand to reason

What does stand to reason mean?
Stand to reason means to seem logical, rational, or reasonable; to make sense.
What part of speech is stand to reason?
Stand to reason is a verb.
How do you pronounce stand to reason?
Stand to reason is pronounced /ˌstænd tə ˈɹiːzn̩/ (UK).
What is the past tense of stand to reason?
The past tense of stand to reason is stood to reason.

Words near stand to reason in the dictionary

  1. stand there like a lemon
  2. stand to
  3. stand to attention
  4. stand to pee
  5. stand to pees
  6. stand to reason
  7. stand together
  8. stand treat
  9. stand trial
  10. stand under
  11. stand up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stand to reason (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-stand to reason.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stand to reason.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stand_to_reason. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.