• Audio(US):

  (file)

goback (third-person singular simple presentgoes back,present participlegoing back,simple pastwent back,past participlegone back)

1. (intransitive) Toreturn to a place or state after having been there at aprevious time.

   We were getting cold so we decided togo back.

   Humans had discovered fire and there was nogoing back.

   • 1909,Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, inThe Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.:Dodd, Mead and Company, published1919,→OCLC:

     He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance.[…] But she said she mustgo back, and when they joined the crowd again[…] she found her mother standing up before the seat on which she had sat all the evening searching anxiously for her with her eyes, and her father by her side.

   • 2008,BioWare,Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts,→ISBN,→OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-1:

     Wrex: I escaped with my life. But not before I sank my dagger deep into my father's chest.
     Wrex: That... is why I left. And that's why I'll nevergo back.

• (return):Go back is used chiefly when talking about returning to a place where the speaker is not presently located. Otherwisecome back is more common.

• go back on
• go back to
• go back to where you came from

• come back
• turn back