Word.ws English Dictionary

go ape

go ape verb: to become wildly excited or enthusiastic.

Verb

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

  1. (slang) To become wildly excited or enthusiastic.
  2. (slang) To become very angry.
    • "Forgot to tell you. Some reporter found out we had a Russkie up here and tried to bluff his way onto the floor. A nurse stopped him. Admiral Blackburn found out and went ape. The whole floor's sealed off. What's the big secret, anyway?"1984, Tom Clancy, “The Eleventh Day: Monday, 13 December”, in The Hunt for Red October, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, →ISBN, page 267

Synonyms of go ape

Forms of go ape

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

Questions about go ape

What does go ape mean?
Go ape means to become wildly excited or enthusiastic.
What part of speech is go ape?
Go ape is a verb.
What is the past tense of go ape?
The past tense of go ape is went ape.

Words near go ape in the dictionary

  1. go amiss
  2. go and boil your head
  3. go and eat coke
  4. go and play in the traffic
  5. go and play in traffic
  6. go ape
  7. go apeshit
  8. go around
  9. go around in circles
  10. go around the houses
  11. go around with

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go ape (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: En-au-go ape.ogg.

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