Go

How to spell go

2 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce go

What does go mean?

1. verbTo move or travel from one place to another, or to proceed in some direction.
2. nounAn attempt at something, or a person's turn in an activity.

Go in a sentence

• verb

  They decided to go home early because of the storm.

• noun

  She had one more go at parking the car correctly.

• verb

  The bus does not go as far as the harbour anymore.

• noun

  It is your go to roll the dice now.

Where does go come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is one of the oldest words in English, descending directly from the Old English verb gan, which simply meant 'to move from one place to another' or 'to proceed'. It belongs to a wider family of Germanic verbs, with close relatives in the Dutch gaan and the German gehen, all carrying the same idea of motion on foot. The verb has always been famously irregular: its past tense 'went' was borrowed long ago from a completely different verb, 'wend', because the old past form of 'go' fell out of use. The spelling stayed short and plain through the centuries, never picking up the silent letters that trip people up in longer words. Over time the meaning broadened from literal walking to almost any kind of movement, departure, progress, or transition, which is why 'go' now turns up in countless everyday phrases.

How the word is built

• go (a complete root word from Old English gan, 'to move or proceed'); it takes no prefix or suffix in this bare form