English · Proverb Candidate

one good turn deserves another

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Kindness should be reciprocated with kindness

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Sự tốt bụng nên được đáp lại với sự tốt bụng

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

' One good turn deserves another, ' I said.

One good turn deserves another. '

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed on Wikipedia “List of proverbial phrases” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Equivalents & related

Near equivalent Ở hiền gặp lành One good turn deserves another. Tiếng Việt Near equivalent one man's trash is another man's treasure Something unwanted by one person can be valuable to another English · via Ở hiền gặp lành

Lighter cards are two steps away in the meaning graph — equivalents of equivalents, reached via the entry shown on the card.

Common questions

What does “one good turn deserves another” mean?

Kindness should be reciprocated with kindness

Is “one good turn deserves another” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

What is the closest equivalent?

“Ở hiền gặp lành” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.