How to Use do-gooder in a Sentence

do-gooder

noun
  • In short, let marines be marines, and help do-gooders do good.
    Andrew J. Bacevich, Foreign Affairs, 15 Aug. 2017
  • One of them had to rescue the mom from a pack of deranged do-gooders, who told her adoption was evil.
    Joy Woodson, Parents, 19 Jan. 2024
  • Tony is the crusading truth-seeker, Mira the naive do-gooder.
    Hillary Kelly, Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 2023
  • But as is so often the case with do-gooders in possession of shallow thought processes, the joke was on Pierre.
    John Tamny, Forbes, 3 May 2023
  • To be sure, taking urban kids out for a gulp of fresh country air has almost become a do-gooder’s cliché.
    Courtland Milloy, Washington Post, 12 July 2023
  • His heroic do-gooder gets slightly more to do here, thankfully.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 18 Dec. 2023
  • So why, then, do politicians, nonprofits and even do-gooder corporations love tiny homes so much?
    Alena Botros, Fortune, 28 Jan. 2024
  • Friedman’s voice-over reminds us that inequality has been a topic of human concern for hundreds of years, courtesy of do-gooders who claim that the wealth of the rich rests on the exploitation of the poor.
    Kim Phillips-Fein, The Atlantic, 13 Nov. 2023
  • The whole project alienated these West Virginians from government—from do-gooders and virtue-signalers.
    Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 27 Mar. 2024
  • But several people who worked with Spiro rolled their eyes at his attempts to frame himself as primarily a do-gooder.
    Sheelah Kolhatkar, The New Yorker, 24 July 2023
  • Ideologues and power-mongers of many sorts, from brazen Black profiteers in Paris to frivolous white do-gooders, fill the frame with their declamations.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2024
  • Notably, the furry do-gooder helped raise $1 million for charity and the donation of more than 1 million bowls of food for homeless animals.
    Natallie Rocha, San Diego Union-Tribune, 1 Apr. 2023
  • The cynic’s instinct is to question this cohort and their do-gooder intentions, which seem fundamentally at odds with shilling merch.
    Jessica Iredale, Town & Country, 28 Apr. 2023
  • Bek Mitchell-Kidd works in communications for nonprofits and do-gooders.
    Bek Mitchell-Kidd, Charlotte Observer, 30 Jan. 2024
  • The protagonist wasn’t a fearless do-gooder but a vulnerable, tortured warrior whose sole purpose was to save the soul of her lover, Dillion, after he had been tortured and killed by the Northmen.
    Gieson Cacho, The Mercury News, 24 May 2024
  • The principals — soi-disant do-gooders who are clearly objects of satire, or should be — are somehow also functioning as point-of-view characters.
    Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 10 Nov. 2023
  • Whitney first went into the HGTV show with two goals: to make a killing in local real estate, and to publicly establish a do-gooder identity that’s in sharp contrast to the reputation of her slumlord parents.
    Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 5 Jan. 2024
  • Waffles points out that no community in history has undergone radical change to please a government or a group of foreign do-gooders.
    Erik Vance, Scientific American, 1 Aug. 2017
  • The actor soon became known for his roles playing a do-gooder, including several films as a police officer, and also for playing fiercely patriotic characters.
    Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 28 Dec. 2023
  • Stabs of social-media satire — targeting both Nikki’s do-gooder wellness brand and Reuben’s exhaustively hashtagged wedding plans — are amusing but easy, glossing over the deeper human weaknesses underpinning them.
    Guy Lodge, Variety, 21 Jan. 2024
  • This included evidence suggesting the former crypto mogul cultivated a humble, do-gooder persona that obscured an appetite for luxury and a disdain for colleagues, followers and policymakers.
    Tory Newmyer, Washington Post, 31 Oct. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'do-gooder.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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