do the right thing
To act or behave correctly, appropriately, or with the best intentions. We are none of us perfect; I just try to do the right thing and let other people live as they wish. I know you think you're trying to do the right thing, but you're going to have a hard time making friends if you tattle on your classmates for every little thing they do wrong. I know he has a lot of money, but he's also a known criminal. Will no one do the right thing and prosecute him?
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do the right thing
COMMON If you do the right thing, you do what is morally right in a situation. I know I can rely on you to do the right thing.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
do the right thing
marry a woman you have made pregnant in order to avoid a scandal. informal euphemisticdo the — thing
engage in the particular form of behaviour typically associated with someone or something. informal, chiefly North American 1999 Tim Lott White City Blue I was going to ask Tony there, oil us all with a few bevvies, and then do the best-man thing.
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