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do by

British  

verb

  1. (intr, preposition) to treat in the manner specified

    employers do well by hard working employees
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
do by Idioms  

  1. Behave with respect to, treat, as in John was determined to do well by his children. This idiom was first recorded about 1175.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Meanwhile, the EIB is limited in what it can do by structural constraints: Its own policies prevent it from financing weapons and ammunition.

From Barron's • Apr. 13, 2026

“Tons of people I work with learned what not to do by the manager they had,” Wasserman says.

From MarketWatch • Dec. 30, 2025

What can you tell us about what you’re planning to do by taking “House Guest” out on tour next year?

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 16, 2025

This is an emergent byproduct of being trained, end-to-end, on human driver camera data, leading the cars to drive more as humans do by default.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 7, 2025

What should children be able to do by the end of the lesson that they couldn’t do at the beginning?

From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.