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noun
a well-intentioned but naive and often ineffectual social or political reformer.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Do-gooder
is always a great word to know.
So is flibbertigibbet. Does it mean:
| a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare. |
| a chattering or flighty, light-headed person. |
Collins
World English Dictionary
| do-gooder | |
| —n | |
| informal, derogatory usually a well-intentioned person, esp a naive or impractical one | |
| do-'goodery | |
| —n | |
| do-'gooding | |
| —n, —adj | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History
do-gooder
"a person who seeks to correct social ills in an idealistic, but usually impractical or superficial, way," 1654 (as do-good), in "Zootomia, or Observations on the Present Manners of the English: Briefly Anatomizing the Living by the Dead. With An Usefull Detection of the Mountebanks of Both Sexes," written
EXPANDby Richard Whitlock, a medical doctor. Probably used even then with a taint of impractical idealism. Modern pejorative use seems to have begun on the socialist left, mocking those who were unwilling to take a hard line. OED has this citation, from "The Nation" in 1923:
COLLAPSE
"There is nothing the matter with the United States except ... the parlor socialists, up-lifters, and do-goods."The form do-gooder appears in Amer.Eng. from 1927, presumably because do-good was no longer felt as sufficiently noun-like. A slightly older word for this was goo-goo.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary
do-gooder definition[ˈdugʊdɚ]
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Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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