Decent means good enough, of an acceptable standard, or honest and fair: a decent salary is a fair, reasonable salary, and a decent person is honest and treats others well. In writing it looks like docent, the title of a university teaching post in several countries, but decent says nothing about university jobs. On CVs and university websites, that post is usually translated as associate professor.
decent: will you get the meaning right?
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a decent + salary/job/meal/hotel; a decent + person/family; It's decent of you to + verb; associate professor (not decent)
- It's not a luxury hotel, but the rooms are clean and the breakfast is decent.
- After years of low pay, Olga finally found a job with a decent salary.
- It was really decent of you to drive me to the airport at five in the morning.
What changed
First versionMy mother works as a decent at the university and teaches statistics.
RevisionMy mother works as an associate professor at the university and teaches statistics.
Decent is easy to read as docent, but it's an adjective meaning “acceptable” or “honest”, so works as a decent makes no sense, rather like “works as an acceptable”. The university post in English is associate professor.
Decent often sounds like reserved praise: not brilliant, but perfectly acceptable. The food was decent, but nothing special. If you want to praise something warmly, say great or excellent.
Your turn
My aunt teaches chemistry at a university in Tomsk, where she is ___.
Show the answer
an associate professor — The aunt teaches at a university, and the end of the sentence needs her job title, which is an associate professor. Decent means “acceptable” or “honest” and says nothing about work at a university.
Write about a café, hotel or hostel you have been to recently. Rate it with the word decent and say what stopped it from being excellent.
The hostel in Tbilisi was decent, but the walls were thin and we could hear every word from the next room.
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