Word.ws English Dictionary

be going to

More pronunciations (2)Fewer pronunciations

stressed/ˈɡoʊɪŋ tu/unstressed/ɡoʊɪŋ tə/

be going to phrase: expresses the prospective aspect relative to a given time frame: something that will happen, or is intended, at the time, to happen.

Phrase

be going to

  1. Expresses the prospective aspect relative to a given time frame: something that will happen, or is intended, at the time, to happen.
    • I'm going to throw out the milk if nobody’s going to drink it.
    • I was going to cut the grass, but it started raining.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see be, going, to.
    • It's getting late; I must be going to my grandma's.

be going to meaning in Tamil and Bengali

be going to in Tamil

will (future tense)
போ preceded by infinitive pō

be going to in Bengali

will (future tense)
যাওয়া jaōẇa

Forms of be going to

alternative pronunciation-spellinggunna
alternative pronunciation-spellinggonno
alternative form (informal)gonna

Origin of be going to

From Middle English goyng to, first attested in 1483—some earlier attestations have been claimed, though these are disputed—and grammaticalized over the course of the Early Modern period. Possibly influenced by the comparable use of Middle French aller (“go”), which arose somewhat earlier and is preserved in modern French.

Questions about be going to

What does be going to mean?
Be going to means expresses the prospective aspect relative to a given time frame: something that will happen, or is intended, at the time, to happen.
What is be going to in Tamil?
Be going to in Tamil is போ preceded by infinitive (pō). See Be going to meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is be going to?
Be going to is a phrase.
How do you pronounce be going to?
Be going to is pronounced /ˈɡoʊɪŋ tu/ (stressed).

Words near be going to in the dictionary

  1. be done with
  2. be down with
  3. be fearful when others are greedy
  4. be friends
  5. be gathered to one's fathers
  6. be going to
  7. be gone
  8. be good for
  9. be greedy when others are fearful
  10. be here for
  11. be in and out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: be going to (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-going to.wav.

Cite this entry: “be going to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/be_going_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.