ˈdo-good
One who or that which does good, or is of use. In modern use (orig. U.S.) = do-gooder. Also attrib. or as adj. Also do-ˈgooding ppl. a. and vbl. n.; do-ˈgoodism; do-ˈgoody a. (all these derivatives carry the disparaging sense of do-gooder).
| 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 723 That they may be accounted somebody, and Do-goods. 1923 Nation 21 Nov. 569/2 There is nothing the matter with the United States except..the parlor socialists, up-lifters, and do-goods. 1936 Sat. Rev. Lit. 14 Mar. 5/1 ‘Scientific and do-gooding people from all over America’ had foregathered to a Child Recovery Conference. 1951 Manch. Guardian Weekly 14 June 3/1 Mr. Truman..has been made aware that..anything that comes out of the State Department bears..a stigma indicating vague incompetence, sympathy to the Communists, and general ‘do-goodism’. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 15 Aug. p. x/2 And the committee would, I am sure, be a snuggery of all the no-goods and do-goods whom I have spent half my life successfully avoiding. 1958 S. Ellin Eighth Circle (1959) ii. xiii. 141 A decision that reeked of the genteel do-goodism, of the compulsive idealism that..infected people of..[his] class and type. 1958 Listener 11 Dec. 1007/3 His tyrannous wife..and her do-goody brother. 1959 Guardian 28 Aug. 3/3 The present-day young are less interested in vague do-gooding..than in reacting to a human situation. 1968 New Statesman 11 Oct. 469/1 Not in a do-good social worker way..but in a fundamental Christian way. 1969 Listener 23 Jan. 105/2 It contains all the do-good elements one can pack into 24 minutes: attractive, young and, of course, black war-widow, her husband having died a hero's death in Vietnam, starts life in California with her attractive young black son. |