entry
go
/ɡoʊ/Move, depart, or proceed onward
From O.English go (to move).
from Old English gān (“to go”)
from Old English gān (“to go”)
from Middle English gon, goon
Word Ancestry
from Old English gān (“to go”)
from Old English gān (“to go”)
from Middle English gon, goon
This little verb is a grammatical troublemaker with a very old passport. Old English had gān, but its past tense was a completely different verb, ēode, which is why English had to steal went from wendan in the 1400s just to patch the gap. That makes go one of the few everyday verbs in English whose past is basically a borrowed spare tire. Its cousins are scattered through Germanic languages, while old compounds like forego and ago still carry the motion idea around like fossilized footprints. By the 1600s it had even wandered into slangy territory like wagering and, much later, the blunt teen use meaning “say.” English really looked at this tiny verb and said, “Fine, you can do everything except have one decent past tense.”
The Story
This little verb is a grammatical troublemaker with a very old passport. Old English had gān, but its past tense was a completely different verb, ēode, which is why English had to steal went from wendan in the 1400s just to patch the gap. That makes go one of the few everyday verbs in English whose past is basically a borrowed spare tire. Its cousins are scattered through Germanic languages, while old compounds like forego and ago still carry the motion idea around like fossilized footprints. By the 1600s it had even wandered into slangy territory like wagering and, much later, the blunt teen use meaning “say.” English really looked at this tiny verb and said, “Fine, you can do everything except have one decent past tense.”
Kin & Kindred
From 'go'·to move, depart, proceed
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wiktionary