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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

decent.

Appropriate; suitable for the circumstances.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈdiː.sənt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdi.sənt/Canada, General-American/ˈdiː.sənt/Australia[ˈdɪi.sənt]Australia
  1. Appropriate; suitable for the circumstances.

  2. Having a suitable conformity to basic moral standards; showing integrity, fairness, or other characteristics associated with moral uprightness.

    Zohran Mamdani is a decent man for not accepting the pay rise he’s entitled to, as he wishes to see that money go to the poor of New York.
  3. Sufficiently clothed or dressed to be seen.

    informal
    Are you decent? May I come in?
  4. Fair; acceptable; okay.

    He's a decent saxophonist, but probably not good enough to make a career of it.
  5. Significant; substantial.

    There are a decent number of references out there, if you can find them.
  6. Conforming to perceived standards of good taste.

  7. Comely; shapely; well-formed.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Middle French décent, or its source, Latin decēns, present participle of decet (“it is fitting or suitable”), from Proto-Indo-European *deḱ- (“to take, accept, to receive, greet, be suitable”) (compare Ancient Greek δοκέω (dokéō, “to appear, seem, think”), δέχομαι (dékhomai, “to accept”); Sanskrit दशस्यति (daśasyáti, “shows honor, is gracious”), दाशति (dāśati, “makes offerings, bestows”)). Meaning ‘kind, pleasant’ is from 1902.

noun
  1. Misspelling of descent.

    alt-of · misspelling
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.