Word.ws English Dictionary

go by the wayside

go by the wayside verb: to become obsolete or outmoded.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To become obsolete or outmoded.

Forms of go by the wayside

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

Questions about go by the wayside

What does go by the wayside mean?
Go by the wayside means to become obsolete or outmoded.
What part of speech is go by the wayside?
Go by the wayside is a verb.
What is the past tense of go by the wayside?
The past tense of go by the wayside is went by the wayside.

Words near go by the wayside in the dictionary

  1. go bush
  2. go bust
  3. go by
  4. go by the board
  5. go by the name of
  6. go by the wayside
  7. go bye-bye
  8. go cahoots
  9. go chapter 11
  10. go chase yourself
  11. go cheap

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go by the wayside (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: en-au-go by the wayside.ogg.

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