Latest comment:20 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I wrote the etymology here, for a class. I haven't had time to polish the article, but the data is quite sound. If anyone would like to deal with stylistic issues in my article, I'd appreciate it (Alexander Yarbrough)— Thisunsigned comment was added by66.61.23.103 (talk) at02:50, 15 October 2004 (UTC).Reply
I've moved the essay to Wikipedia, and tried to summarize the OE and ME. I already don't remember why I left out the IE roots. -dmh 04:42, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone have any idea how you can explain the meaning of "go" in such phrases as "how's it going?", "It's going quite well for her" and "His job is going quite badly for him"?— Thisunsigned comment was added by81.109.19.41 (talk) at20:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC).Reply
Another usage - tohave a go at sb. (as opposed tohave a go at sth. -- try it) means to argue with them, or get angry at them. eg. "Don't have a go at me, it's not my fault you're running late." May be Australian English (or British English).w:User:pfctdayelise (203.214.105.116)11:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:19 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The second definition is currently "To disappear" but I think "to leave" would be more accurate. Think of "I'm going" or "Are you going now?" - "leaving" is the synonym, not "disappearing".Kappa02:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I suggest we add the following definition for intransitive use of go: (Computing) To direct a web browser.Every morning I go to Google's main page...KyleWild06:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:19 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
I think that someone should add a part that talks about the Asian board game, 'Go,' a board where the primary objective is to use little, circular stone tablets (Go pieces) to surround, and therefore capture, more squares of the board than your opponent does. I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet...Manga_King— Thisunsigned comment was added by138.88.117.189 (talk) at00:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC).Reply
What is it about "Etymology 2" that confuses you. The word "go" has more than one origin. Etymology 1 is the common Anglo-Saxon verb "to go", and etymology 2 is from the Orient.—Stephen10:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence. Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meetsWiktionary's criteria for inclusion.
I think that the disintegrate sense is likely an extension of the first sense, as in to leave. I have to go. That ugly shirt must go. The bridge is about to go. So go --> leave --> disappear. Something on that order. So, I think disintegrate is an inappropriate def., but perhaps could be replaced with depart, or something similar.Atelaes03:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
This is tough. MW3 3 has 21 senses for the intransitive verb, most with subsenses (as many as 8), not very many obsolete. "laugh" is the one that doesn't seem to fit with any of theirs. It might be easier to imagine "went" and "going" rather than infinitive. The figurative senses and narrow-context senses are not always obvious. I'd be reluctant to economize on senses for such a basic, multi-functional word.DCDuring04:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
It seems there are pages for bothgo andGo, althoughTalk:Go redirects to this page. Bothgo#Etymology_2 andGo describe the same meaning, that of the Chinese board game.Go is there as a (capitalised) proper noun, but it is also listed as a regular noun ingo. Since the literature I've found seems unable to make its mind up as to whether this is a proper noun or not, there should be a note to this effect(or preferred usage if someone can find evidence for one) on both pages, since users who only find one of the two pages will be under the impression that the correct usage is that of the page they've stumbled upon. Hope this makes sense! --Yjo10:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
"(copula) To become" covers e.g. "go blind", "go crazy", but what about "go large" (upgrade to a bigger fast-food deal) and "go full-screen" (extend the size of an on-screen video etc.)? They are similar, but the person who does the "going" is not the thing that does the becoming.Equinox◑10:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
It would be nice if we could figure out how to include it in some other sense, though I couldn't in my reading of the verb PoS section. It is certainly not the same as the "become" sense. "To cause something to become" is the idea, right? I'm not sure that it should be called acopula, as the complement does not apply to the subject. I find the examples atw:List of English copulae helpful.DCDuringTALK11:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I don't really understand why the following is a usage note and not listed as a numbered sense:
"Go, along with do, make, and to a lesser extent other English verbs, is often used as a substitute verb for a verb used previously or one that is implied..."
Latest comment:13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
How can we classify and describe an idiomatic usage of go implying "ready, available, online" as in "all systems arego" or theThunderbirds' motto phrase "Thunderbirds arego". Partially it is covered under the usage of go as noun, but this one seems a little different.— Thisunsigned comment was added by91.132.141.80 (talk) at16:55, 15 June 2012 (UTC).Reply
It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.
Sense number 34, "To bepregnant (with)". This appears only to occur in combination with "with" and some synonym for an unborn child (go with child, go with fruit, go with a bun in the oven). This is no different from the use of "go" meaning "to be". To go with child is the same as to be with child or to walk around with child or to paraglide with child; it does not convert the word "go" into a word meaning "to be pregnant".bd2412T18:07, 16 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I'm not certain that any of our senses cover "go" in "go online" (i.e. get on the Internet). It's a sort of metaphorical use of the basic movement sense.Equinox◑14:13, 15 April 2013 (UTC)Reply
Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence. Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meetsWiktionary's criteria for inclusion.
Rfd-sense: sense 42:(intransitive, archaic) To walk.
This doesn't seem to be any different from sense 1,(obsolete, intransitive) To walk; to fare on one's feet., and should probably be merged with it. --Liliana•19:03, 12 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Having 50+ senses makes this entry practically unusable. Many of these senses double-up, like 55 and 56. Other senses are extremely questionable, like 31. Others are, at the least, very similar and should be grouped together as sub-senses, like 22-24. I'm not someone who likes to just go in and start messing with things without asking first, but something definitely has to be done to fix this entry.D4g0thur (talk)01:48, 16 May 2014 (UTC)Reply
There are 50+ senses, many of which are too specific to their context and can be generalized and merged with other senses. As it is now, anyone looking for a definition ofgo or for a specific sense will be overwhelmed by the unnecessary senses. --WikiTiki89 (talk)18:49, 18 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
There's a lot in that word "unnecessary". MWOnline has 63 definitions, 49 intransitive and 14 transitive. They do a better job of organizing and, of course, maintaining them than we do. They have the advantages of having a consistent intellectual point of view and full-time employees, which show up the most on such basic polysemic words.
Make,have,take,set,let,run,put,give, anddo are similar.
Do you think that organizing the senses into groups would help? Is it more important to group them semantically or syntactically (transitive/intransitive) or by general vs specific? Or should the senses be ordered by frequency of use or by date the sense came into use? Should some senses be concealed until the user clicks on something to display them, using something like{{trans-top}} or{{rel-top}}?DCDuringTALK20:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
Organizing them into groups is an excellent idea that I have been thinking about. Most dictionaries I've seen use subdivisions somewhat like the following:
def1
a. def2a
b. def2b
def3
I think it would be a great idea to use subdivisions like that for all entries where it makes sense (not only the long ones).
The combined number-letter scheme is not available to us, but number-number is:
def1
def2
def2a
def2b
def3a
def3b
This is more restrictive than the scheme used by MWOnline which does not require that a subsense have a parent sense. Note how we handle defs 3a and 3b.DCDuringTALK10:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
To group senses without a parent sense, you could use (and on de.Wikt I have seen) a format like:
first sense
[empty line, just a# and nothing after it]
sense that's in a group with the next one
sense that's in a group with the previous one
another sense
You can also use (and I like) a format that hassome grammatical or syntactic info rather than just blankess:
If anyone is going to tackle this entry, I think the labelling of certain senses as "transitive" also needs looking at. I mentioned it somewhere else a while ago, but I don't remember where now. IMO, senses like "Let's go this way for a while" and "We've only gone twenty miles today" are not truly transitive. In fact, I wonder if there areany truly transitive senses of "go".86.169.36.1103:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
I've overhauledgo, adding missing senses and deploying subsenses perthis RFC. There are still some senses we are missing:
The sense of "go" that's used in "go to Google and type in 'foo'". The absence of this sense was noted on the talk pageas early as 2006 andas recently as last year. It seems like a figurative derivative of sense 1.2 (the entry's mainworkhorse sense), but I'm not sure how to word it. (added)
The sense used in "hewent (over my head and) straight to the CEO", "they were prepared togo to the President with the plan". It seems similar to the sense that's used in "I'll go to court if I have to", which we define as "resort to".
The sense used in "going through the usual channels would take too long". (Comparego through.) Or does one of our existing senses cover this? It seemssimilar to the sense used in "Wordwent to Friends in Maryland, that we were drowned" (from theJournal of William Edmundson), which in turn seemssimilar to the sense used in "Telegrams [...]went by wire to Halifax", which is sense 1.2.
Random House and Merriam-Webster have a sense which they word as "endure or tolerate" and "put up with : tolerate", respectively. Their usage examples are "I can't go his preaching" and "couldn't go the noise", but I can't find anything like that on Google Books.
Merriam-Webster has a sense "come to be determined", with the usex "dreams go by contraries". That seems to be an idiom and hence not a reliable indication that "go" has this sense by itself, but I can find several uses likethis — but I can't tell if "come to be determined" is what they mean.
Hmm, I can see how a lot of uses would be covered by a less explicit definition like "use the toilet" (or perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by 'the definition too explicit'), but then I have also seen usage likethis, where it does just mean "urinate", not "use the toilet".- -sche(discuss)19:32, 9 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
I think more often than not, it means urinate, but it can mean anything at all that "go to the bathroom" can mean (although our current definition does not include all the possibilities: you can "go to the bathroom" in the middle of the woods with no toilet around, and you can "go to the bathroom" when you're already in the bathroom, etc., and this may also apply togo to the toilet). --WikiTiki8912:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
Some time ago I added a citation atgo to the bathroom where it says a dog started to "go to the bathroom" on the carpet, showing that the expression does not necessarily imply walking to a room with a toilet in it. —Aɴɢʀ (talk)13:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
Another missing sense is an informal/colloquial/non-standard one meaning "visit", like in the phrase "I want to go London". Also possibly one to fit "once you go black you never go back" --ElisaVan (talk)00:49, 17 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
For some reason I cannot edit the section at[1], but I still dispute some of these supposedly transitive examples. We've only gone twenty miles today. -- "twenty miles" is adverbial Let's go this way for a while. -- "this way" is adverbial She was going that way anyway. -- "that way" is adverbial Cats go "meow". -- doubtful that this is transitive Let's go halves on this. -- "halves" is probably adverbial That's as high as I can go. -- definitely not transitive
Right next to the "twenty miles" usex is the usex "this car can go circles around that one"; is it also intransitive / adverbial? (I'm asking; I'm not sure of the answer.)
The sense that has the "let's go this way", "she was going that way" usexes also has a citation saying "go this path up to its end", so the sense itself does seem to be transitive — but perhaps the "this way"/"that way" usexes belong under a different sense?
"Cats go meow" is transitive just like sense 1 of "say".
The same sense used in "that's as high as I can go" is also used in "I can go two fifty", so it seems to be both transitive and intransitive (likebid); I'll emend the context label accordingly.
I think the sense you are uncertain about is also transitive by a normal analysis. Consider:
The car went a short distance, only three blocks, before stalling again. and relatedly:
The car went the entire first week of May without a problem.
One can substitute many nominal expressions into the slot that an object ofgo in this sense would fill. It seems a bit of a strain to call them adverbials grammatically, whatever their semantics. What undisputed adverbs could be inserted into that slot?
One might say that both sentences "really" have a missing prepositionfor preceding the nominal, but I've never been satisfied with such approached. The preposition/particle can be inserted for clarification, but does not seem essential to convey meaning.DCDuringTALK01:39, 18 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
Good point about "went a short distance"; I've inserted a citation showing that usage. "The car went the entire first week of May without a problem" looks like sense 25 — and that highlights the fact that that sense, too, is ambitransitive.- -sche(discuss)03:10, 18 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
Personally I am not convinced that "go circles", "go a short distance", "go twenty miles" etc. are properly transitive. It is not feasible, for example, to ask "What did the car go?" and expect an answer "circles" or "a short distance", or "twenty miles". Neither is it possible to substitute a pronoun such as "it" and say, for example, "The car went it". Neither are passive forms such as "a short distance was gone by the car" possible in natural English. While not individually conclusive, all these points provide evidence against transitivity and in favour of the argument that these so-called objects are actually adverbial.86.128.3.18603:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
Similar diagnostics may also indicate that there is a difference between "go" in "Cats go 'meow'" and "say" in, for example, "She said 'hello'", which are equated above.
What did she say? / She said 'hello'. -- OK
What do cats go? / Cats go 'meow'. -- Feels faulty
She said it. -- OK
Cats go it. -- Not possible
'hello' was said by her. -- Not common but feasible
RFV-sense "To be known or considered." This seems to be limited to the collocationgo by (as inhis name is Samuel but he goes by Sam), which we (for better or worse) have a separate entry for. Notably, both Random House and Merriam-Webster have a comparable sense undergo rather than undergo by,but their only usage examples are of "go by".- -sche(discuss)22:35, 8 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Is obviously a euphemistic clipped form ofgo potty,go to the toilet,go to the restroom, &c. just like "go" meaning "to enjoy" is a clipped form ofgo for,go and get, &c.
Someone obviously spent a lot of time formatting this entry pretty precisely, so I'll leave it to them to handle the specifics but the entry should address that origin for these senses. — Llywelyn08:42, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Chambers 1908 hasgo an errand ("to go with messages"). This is dated and today we would saygo on an errand. I wonder if this older transitive sense is covered adequately.Equinox◑13:15, 12 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Should there be a definition specifically for the use of "go" in imperative phrases, as in "Could you go get the phone?" or "Go find me that book!"? I feel that the sense is technically covered under def 6.2, but I think there could be a more direct mention of its use as an imperative. I didn't want to just insert it without checking first.Etymographer (talk)21:00, 15 September 2020 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
a) an ‘inchoative’ function, suggesting beginning the action indicated in the infinitive b) as an instruction c) informally or conversationally to mean ‘to be so foolish, unreasonable, or unlucky as to—’ --Backinstadiums (talk)10:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)Reply
That’s definitely true, in Brummie speech one often hearsɡə down andɡu on forgo down andgo on respectively. In the Black Countryɡu is in fact a strong form, traditionally speltgoo in dialect writings. Another interesting phenomenon is the way that some people from Yorkshire saydʊ instead ofdu for the worddo, even as a strong form (for example, listen toSean Bean say something like “I do” in his native Sheffield accent).Overlordnat1 (talk)18:34, 15 April 2022 (UTC)Reply
We have something similar atdo but I don’t how the distinction betweendo appearing in an unstressed position after a vowel and a consonant makes sense as either situation is vanishingly rare. It seems to me thatdo is only unstressed at the start of a sentence, so its weak form doesn’t appear after any other words (the fact that dʊ can be a strong form in some speakers with a broad Yorkshire accent or dialect, or at least in some varieties of such, is a separate phenomenon that may nonetheless merit a mention somewhere in our entry fordo though).Overlordnat1 (talk)12:54, 16 April 2022 (UTC)Reply
I’m having difficulty finding examples on YT of Sean Bean saying dʊ as a strong form, though I’m sure I’ve heard him do so on occasion, but I’ve just heard the Mancunian comedienneRachel Fairburn say gʊ as a strong form forgo on TV (on Richard Osman’s House of Games). She rather oddly used the American pronunciation ofclerk too, that’s probably a regional pronunciation in this instance rather than just an Americanism as she was quite insistent on saying it that way.Overlordnat1 (talk)17:42, 20 April 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment:8 months ago2 comments1 person in discussion
We use 'go -ing' for activities in which people move about, and which do not have a fixed beginning or end:go dancing/fruit-picking but notgo *boxing / *watching a football match.
According to Swan'sPractical, if the purpose of a movement comes before the destination,at/in usually before the place: Let's goto Starbucksto have coffee BUTLet's goand have coffeeat Starbucks.JMGN (talk)19:20, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Rfv-sense ofgo beingClipping ofgotothe in the UK. I've heard multiple British people say "go [place]". This is attested since 2018 and does not appear to be used by immigrants. I, a Canadian, always say "go to the [place]"/"go to [proper noun]'s" except for "home". I've seen Americans teach "go [place]" to be bad grammar, but I can't find anywhere including on Wiktionary saying this British construction exists.
Can this be said in a formal British workplace/court/interview?
Do other verbs allow omitting "to the"?
Is this construction transitive, i.e. is the "[place]" a direct object or an adverb?
It's informal and I can't think of other verbs that allow this construction off-hand. I'm not sure about your last question, it's unlikely that someone would say 'I'm going big shop' or 'I'm going really big shop' instead of 'I'm going shop' if that's what you mean. It was surprisingly hard to find evidence of this quite commonplace informal use of 'go' online but I did find the following Australian website[2] (I'm gonna go shops on Monday arvo) which demonstrates that this is found in Australia as well as Britain, at least occasionally.--Overlordnat1 (talk)08:05, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
I would have never thought of "?I'm going shop" because the "I'm going shopping" I sayblocks that. I do agree I've never heard it with adjectives / adverbs / other words in the middle. Compound words are a related grey area like the "going steakhouse" I just saw.
This might be similar to the "hetended bar" construction. "He tended bars" is 72.25x rarer, while "going pubs" is 8.24x rarer on Google. To me, the second word becomes uncountable, but the data isn't conclusive.
Nevermind my last question.Some things that follow verbs "are not customarily construed to be the object" even if they're not prepositions, but in this case "pub" is seemingly used as an adverb. In this case, I found the following tests to determine the construction is transitive:
"I went pub" → "*the going of pub by me" but "I built a house" → "the building of a house by me" (test for direct object, distinguishes the rfv-sense from the sense "(transitive, colloquial) To enjoy. (Compare go for.)")
"I went pub" → "*I am pub" but "I seemed upset" → "I am upset" (test for subject complement)
I added your Australian quote. The source saying "Sometimes key words can be left out, such as ‘to’ or ‘the’, which makes it sound lazy." implies other verbs allow this construction but I can't find attested quotes either.76.71.3.15023:24, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
As a Victorian I've never heard this. Maybe the sentence in that primary school slide deck is a weird NSW-ism, or belongs to some emerging sociolect I'm not familiar with. But I'm dubious.This, that and the other (talk)09:16, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm also dubious, particularly about the "UK" tag. In England, I don't hear people saying that they are going to "go pub" or "go shops", not in ordinary language, not even colloquially. The citations that we presently have are from low-quality sources and seem to me to be somewhere between lazy (or possibly deliberate) abbreviated writing and just plain bad English. I expect we could find instances of "staying hotel" or "living USA" or "arrived the airport" or any other kind of broken English or telegraphese. It doesn't mean that we have to recognise it in the dictionary. However, if other people feel that "go pub/shops/etc." definitely does exist at a sufficiently established level of usage, then fair enough.Mihia (talk)18:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
"Go toilet" and "go potty" are baby-speak though, and Google hits exist for almost any broken English or telegraphese phrase that you care to type in. Is this "go pub", "go shops", "go Tesco" thing something that you have personally heard significant numbers of British people saying?Mihia (talk)15:13, 13 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Added a SEVENTH quote proving this usage very much exists, this time from a Dizzee Rascal song. Thanks to Raskit, this is nowRFV passed. --Overlordnat1 (talk)08:57, 1 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Done We now have a suitable sense "to navigate".Equinox◑19:40, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
