upstanding
/ʌpˈstændɪŋ/
upstanding adjective: honest; reputable; respectable. Also the present participle and gerund of upstand.
Adjective (1)
upstanding (comparative more upstanding, superlative most upstanding)
- Honest; reputable; respectable.
- An upstanding merchant will exchange a faulty product.
- I don't even know her
But I feel a responsibility to do what's upstanding and right
It's kinda like a code, yeah
And you've been getting closer and closer, and crossing so many lines2012, Taylor Swift, “Girl at Home”, in Red, performed by Taylor Swift
Adjective (2)
upstanding (not comparable)
- Standing up.
- Please be upstanding for His Worship the Mayor.
- Swift was among those upstanding for Dion when she walked on stage and singing to Dion's hit The Power of Love.2024 February 4, “Celine Dion makes surprise appearance at Grammy awards”, in bbc.com
Also used as
upstanding is also the present participle and gerund of upstand.
Forms of upstanding
| comparative | more upstanding |
|---|---|
| superlative | most upstanding |
Origin of upstanding
From up- + standing.
From upstand.
Words formed from upstanding
Questions about upstanding
- What does upstanding mean?
- Upstanding means honest; reputable; respectable.
- What part of speech is upstanding?
- Upstanding is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce upstanding?
- Upstanding is pronounced /ʌpˈstændɪŋ/.
Words near upstanding in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: upstanding (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-upstanding.wav.
Cite this entry: “upstanding.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/upstanding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.