Word.ws English Dictionary

go about

go about verb: to busy oneself with.

Verb

go about (third-person singular simple present goes about, present participle going about, simple past went about, past participle gone about)

  1. (transitive) To busy oneself with.
    • The workers went about their business as Zelensky looked around. One man at the wheel of a forklift seemed annoyed when the presidential entourage got in his way, and the machine beeped loudly as we tried to maneuver around him.December 7 2022, Simon Shuster, “2022 Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky”, in Time, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2023
  2. (intransitive) To tackle (a problem or task).
    • A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  3. (intransitive) To circulate (in).
    Synonyms:
    shrithe
  4. (intransitive) To change from one tack to another. See :Wikipedia:Tack (maneuver).
    • [I]t was commonly said that two masts, a bowsprit and a swivel gun would have transformed our dwelling into a line-of-battle ship; indeed, so seaman-like was our architect, that we feared when once we had taken possession of our new house, we might be disturbed during the night by an order being...1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 112

go about meaning in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Punjabi

go about in Telugu

to go about, to go round
చుట్టు cuṭṭu

go about in Malayalam

begin, set about, embark on
തുടങ്ങുക, ആരംഭിക്കുക, പ്രവർത്തനത്തിൽ ഏർപ്പെടുക, ഏൽപെടുക, മുതിരുക, പ്രവർത്തി ആരംഭിക്കുക

go about in Kannada

ತೊಡಗಿರು

go about in Punjabi

to go about, pass through, wander, roam, loiter
ਵਿਚਰਨਾ vicranā
More languagesFewer languages
go about in Sanskrit
परी parī

Synonyms of go about

Forms of go about

third-person singular presentgoes about
present participlegoing about
pastwent about
past participlegone about

Questions about go about

What does go about mean?
Go about means to busy oneself with.
What is go about in Telugu?
Go about in Telugu is చుట్టు (cuṭṭu). See Go about meaning in Telugu.
What part of speech is go about?
Go about is a verb.
What is the past tense of go about?
The past tense of go about is went about.

Words near go about in the dictionary

  1. go a cropper
  2. go a long way
  3. go a mucker
  4. go a raker
  5. go a-begging
  6. go about
  7. go about one's business
  8. go about one's day
  9. go about to
  10. go after
  11. go against

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go about (page history and authors); చుట్టు (Telugu) (page history and authors); go about (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); go about (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਵਿਚਰਨਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); परी (Sanskrit) (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “go about.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_about. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.