have a good mind to

1. Be strongly inclined to, as in She had a good mind to tell him everything. A slightly weaker form of this idiom is have a mind to, as in I have a mind to spend my next vacation in the desert. Formerly this idiom was sometimes put as have a great mind to. [c. 1400] Also see half a mind.

Example Sentences

We don’t notice the threat we feel coming through each other’s comments, nor the threats we make, in so many words, hinting that we have a good mind to just declare the other person an idiot.

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“As I wrote it, I felt very sorry for her and at the same time very angry: She should have married one of them — they were interchangeable anyway — and at least gained some wordly success, some social respectability. I have a good mind to let her do it in some other novel and see how she will cope!”

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I have a good mind to report you to Sister Rita.

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I have a good mind to write to your poor mother and I would if I thought it wouldn’t destroy her entirely.

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My heart became filled with compassion; I felt my milk welling up miraculously in my breasts, so I said to my husband: 'I swear by Allah that I have a good mind to adopt that orphan boy, notwithstanding that we have but slight hopes of ever earning anything worth talking about by so doing.'—'I cannot say thou art wrong,' he replied.

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