good guy
Americannoun
-
a moral or noble person; a hero or someone perceived as one.
The film's twist is that the monster turns out to be the good guy.
-
any person who is regarded as habitually prone to doing good things or as being morally correct.
There are times in this job where we don't feel like the good guys.
Etymology
Origin of good guy
An Americanism first recorded in 1920–25
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.
“We’re the good guys, trying to help out everybody as much as we can.”
From Los Angeles Times
“There is a good guy and a bad guy that’s very clear and very binary,” she says.
From Los Angeles Times
Of course, some of the best war movies contain far murkier layers, with the Americans or the allies or the Brits questioning whether they are in fact the good guys after all.
In a town — and a time — of selfishness and self-serving, Reiner was one of the good guys, always fighting, both through his films and his politics, to make the world kinder and closer.
From Los Angeles Times
"He has just always had something about him that makes him a star," she says, adding that for most of his career, he's "always maintained a good guy persona".
From BBC
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.
