- good
- good adj Good, right are comparable when they mean in accordance with one's standard of what is satisfactory.Good (as opposed to bad) implies full approval or commendation of someone or something in the respect under consideration (as excellence of workmanship, excellence of condition, beneficial properties, competence, agreeableness, purity, or freshness){
and God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good— Gen 1:31
}{good food
}{a good light
}{a good book for children
}{good news
}{a good neighbor
}{they are very good men, the monks, very pious men— Joyce
}Good (as opposed to poor) does not imply hearty approval, but it does not suggest dissatisfaction; it implies that the person or thing so described measures up to a point which is regarded as satisfactory or possesses the qualities necessary to a thing of its kind{a good crop
}{good soil
}{good, but not excellent, work
}{the business for the past year was good
}{a good return on an investment
}{a good play
}{the more general history ... is less good. Partly, that is because the sources ... are too narrow for the weight of the conclusions— Laski
}{between good workmanship and design and that touch of rareness which makes not merely good but fine and lovely— Alexander
}Often the difference in meaning between these two senses of good is apparent only in the inflection or through the medium of a context. Right (see also CORRECT) often implies that the thing so described is fitting, proper, or appropriate with respect to the circumstances; thus, a book one knows to be good may not be the right book to give to a person who is unable to understand it; the right light for a picture may be quite different from a good light for reading{she always does the right thing at the right time
}{the scene in Julius Caesar is right because the object of our attention is not the speech of Antony . . . but the effect of his speech upon the mob— T. S. Eliot
}Right may also imply the absence of anything wrong in the person or thing so described{God's in his heaven- all's right with the world!— Browning
}{marry when she has found the right chap— Reid
}Antonyms: bad: poor
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
