Word.ws English Dictionary

go ballistic

go ballistic verb: to become very angry and irrational.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To become very angry and irrational.
    • She'd go ballistic, possibly even fling a fireball or two, if she knew Selene had him in her apartment.1964, Elle James and Pamela Kent, Enemy Lover
    • Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Hey, sorry for going ballistic back there. I think the whole Julie-being-alive thing affected me more than I thought.2011 Allen Gregory, "Pilot" (season 1, episode 1)
  2. for a usually rocket-powered, predominantly non-glide projectile or aerial vehicle, such as a ballistic missile, to travel to its target partly via unpowered ballistic or quasi-ballistic flight, usually following burnout of its rocket motor
    • SRAM is a very flexible weapon. It has a ballistic trajectory. It can be launched and go ballistic into its target for a long range... and it can go short range at very low levels.1978, United States Senate, Part 8 of Fiscal year 1978 authorization for military procurement, research and development, and active duty, selected reserve, and civilian personnel strengths: hearings...
  3. (slang) for a powered, usually guided missile or other aerial vehicle to travel on an unguided or ballistic trajectory, having lost power, control or guidance
    • I... fired two AIM-7s in a ripple. One AIM-7 went ballistic. The other guided but passed behind the MIG and did not detonate. Knowing that I was then too close for further AIM-7 firing...1976, Robert Frank Futrell, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia-- aces and aerial victories, 1965-1973
    • In the case of retarded bombs released at too high a speed, the retarding fins might tear away and allow the bomb to go ballistic.1986, Alfred Price, Air Battle Central Europe

Forms of go ballistic

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

Origin of go ballistic

The idiomatic usage derives from the second-generation of jet fighters, armed with guided missiles, in the late 1950s into the 1960s, with the informal military sense of fully-powered non-ballistic missiles going ballistic when losing control and assuming a free-fall trajectory, sense 3. But in subsequent usage the term has often become associated with the intentionally ballistic, suborbital trajectories of long-range, typically nuclear-armed missiles, sense 2.

Questions about go ballistic

What does go ballistic mean?
Go ballistic means to become very angry and irrational.
What part of speech is go ballistic?
Go ballistic is a verb.
What is the past tense of go ballistic?
The past tense of go ballistic is went ballistic.

Words near go ballistic in the dictionary

  1. go backwards
  2. go bad
  3. go bag
  4. go bags
  5. go bail
  6. go ballistic
  7. go balls up
  8. go bananas
  9. go band for band
  10. go bankrupt
  11. go batshit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go ballistic (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 ballistic.ogg.

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