Word.ws English Dictionary

go begging

go begging verb: to be available but wasted, unused, or not actualized.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To be available but wasted, unused, or not actualized.
    • "Principles without leaders go begging," he replied.1904, David Graham Phillips, chapter 18, in The Cost
    • As prosperity piles up the paperwork, the shortage becomes more severe; some 250000 secretarial jobs go begging every day.1957 April 8, “They're Either Too Pretty or Too Old”, in Time

Forms of go begging

third-person singular presentgoes begging
present participlegoing begging
pastwent begging
past participlegone begging
alternative formgo a-begging

Questions about go begging

What does go begging mean?
Go begging means to be available but wasted, unused, or not actualized.
What part of speech is go begging?
Go begging is a verb.
What is the past tense of go begging?
The past tense of go begging is went begging.

Words near go begging in the dictionary

  1. go balls up
  2. go bananas
  3. go band for band
  4. go bankrupt
  5. go batshit
  6. go begging
  7. go belly-up
  8. go below
  9. go berserk
  10. go between
  11. go beyond

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go begging (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 begging.ogg.

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