stand to reason

English

WOTD – 28 June 2021

Etymology

From stand (“(archaic or obsolete) to be consistent; to accord, agree”) + to + reason.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌstænd tə ˈɹiːzn̩/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌstænd tə ˈɹiz(ə)n/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːzən
• Hyphenation: stand to rea‧son

Verb

stand to reason (third-person singular simple present stands to reason, present participle standing to reason, simple past and past participle stood to reason)

1. (idiomatic) To seem logical, rational, or reasonable; to make sense.
   • 1966, M[argaret] I. Clarke, Care of the Horse and Pony, San Francisco, Calif.: Tri-Ocean Books, →OCLC, page 45, column 1:

     It stands to reason that because of the difference in climate the necessity for rugging a horse in Australia would vary considerably from that in cold countries like England […]

   • 2019 May 5, Danette Chavez, “Campaigns are Waged On and Off the Game Of Thrones Battlefield (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 28 January 2021:

     But if the saying that those who want to govern, shouldn’t, applies here, does it really stand to reason that reluctant, brooding, can’t-be-bothered-to-say-goodbye-to-Ghost-the-good-boy types should?

Translations

to seem logical, rational, or reasonable — see also make sense

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 有道理 (zh) (yǒu dàolǐ), 有意義／有意义 (yǒu yìyì)

• Finnish: olla pääteltävissä
• French: tomber sous le sens (fr)
• German: naheliegen (de)
• Japanese: 道理に適う (どうりにかなう, dōri ni kanau), 然もありなん (さもありなん, samoarinan)
• Manx: lhie
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: synes fornuftig, synes logisk

• Polish: być logicznym impf
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ста̀јати impf

  Roman: stàjati (sh) impf

See also

• go without saying