Word.ws English Dictionary

go by

go by verb: to pass or go past without much interaction.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To pass or go past without much interaction.
    • I like to sit and watch the world go by. The rest of the day went by quickly.
    Synonyms:
    pass by, fly by, forpass, forthglide, overgo, pass, roll on, slip by, transpass
  2. (transitive) To be called, to use as a name.
    • His full name is Ernest Tinkleton, but he goes by Ernie.
  3. (transitive) To suggest or request that other people use a specific set of gender pronouns when referring to the subject.
    • I go by they/them pronouns.
    Synonyms:
    use
  4. (transitive) To follow; to assume as true for the purposes of making a decision, taking an action, etc.
    • I'm only going by what my teacher said.
    • a good rule to go by
    Synonyms:
    go off

go by meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Sanskrit

go by in Tamil

to go by, pass over; to lapse
போ pō

go by in Urdu

گریز, اجتناب

go by in Malayalam

abide by, obey, comply with
അനുസരിച്ചുനടക്കുക, പറഞ്ഞതു കേൾക്കുക, വരുതി കേൾക്കുക, കീഴ്വഴങ്ങുക, വഴിപെടുക, കൂട്ടാക്കുക

go by in Sanskrit

to go by, pass by
अत्येति átyeti

Examples of go by in a sentence

  • The uncared-for external appearance of the tanks is nothing to go by, for the glass-lined tanks are kept in perfect condition.1959 March, R. C. Riley, “Home with the Milk”, in Trains Illustrated, page 155:
  • To go by recent history, that moment will come sooner than we think.2020 April 9, Richard Horton, “Coronavirus is the greatest global science policy failure in a generation”, in The Guardian:

Synonyms of go by

1 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of go by

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

Questions about go by

What does go by mean?
Go by means to pass or go past without much interaction.
What is go by in Tamil?
Go by in Tamil is போ (pō). See Go by meaning in Tamil.
How do you use go by in a sentence?
The uncared-for external appearance of the tanks is nothing to go by, for the glass-lined tanks are kept in perfect condition.
What part of speech is go by?
Go by is a verb.
What is the past tense of go by?
The past tense of go by is went by.

Words near go by in the dictionary

  1. go bonkers
  2. go both ways
  3. go brrr
  4. go bush
  5. go bust
  6. go by
  7. go by the board
  8. go by the name of
  9. go by the wayside
  10. go bye-bye
  11. go cahoots

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go by (page history and authors); போ (Tamil) (page history and authors); go by (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); go by (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); अत्येति (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-go by.wav.

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