do the trick

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

do the trick (third-person singular simple present does the trick, present participle doing the trick, simple past did the trick, past participle done the trick)

1. (informal) To work; to be successful; to solve a problem; to be sufficient or adequate to fulfill a purpose.
   • 1885, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 3, in King Solomon's Mines:

     [J]ust that little extra second did the trick.

   • 1921, Victor Appleton, chapter 24, in Tom Swift Among The Fire Fighters:

     "It was the chemicals from this young man's airship that did the trick!"

   • 2002 April 15, Laura Bradford, “Three Ways To Give Nature A Helping Hand”, in Time:

     Sometimes hormone therapy does the trick, but many infertile couples require more sophisticated manipulation of sperm and eggs.

Synonyms

• do the job
• hit the mark
• turn the trick

Translations

to work

• Finnish: tepsiä (fi)
• French: faire l’affaire (fr)
• Icelandic: duga (is), nægja
• Polish: robić swoje (pl) impf, zrobić swoje pf, działać (pl) impf, zadziałać pf, załatwiać sprawę impf, załatwić sprawę pf
• Swedish: göra susen (sv)

Further reading

• “do the trick”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.