go down in history
go down in history verb: be sufficiently noteworthy as to be remembered by future generations.
Verb
go down in history (third-person singular simple present goes down in history, present participle going down in history, simple past went down in history, past participle gone down in history)
- Be sufficiently noteworthy as to be remembered by future generations.
- Not many of the great composers have gone down in history as having taken part as one of the principals in a duel. Among them, perhaps this honor must be awarded solely to Händel. The cause of this affair was to be found in one of the curious customs of his day.1896, Willey Francis Gates, Anecdotes of Great Musicians, 151.—Händel's Duel
- I think of things that I might be / I see my name go down in history1977, David Byrne, “Pulled Up”, in Talking Heads: 77, performed by Talking Heads
- Synonyms:
- make history
Examples of go down in history in a sentence
- She would later go down in history as the third victim of Jack the Ripper.2018 September 14, Derek Coleman, “Old superstition comes true with tragic consequences”, in AP News, archived from the original on 03 Dec...
- Captain Stuart Hogg and his team will now go down in history as the side who were able to slay England in their own den, emulating Jim Aitken’s heroes of ’83.2021 February 6, Graham Bean, “Scotland beat England at Twickenham for the first time in 38 years”, in The Scotsman:
- If he fails, he will go down in history not as the man who freed the United Kingdom, but as the man who destroyed it.2021 April 15, “From United Kingdom to Untied Kingdom”, in The Economist, →ISSN:
Synonyms of go down in history
Forms of go down in history
| third-person singular present | goes down in history |
|---|---|
| present participle | going down in history |
| past | went down in history |
| past participle | gone down in history |
Questions about go down in history
- What does go down in history mean?
- Go down in history means be sufficiently noteworthy as to be remembered by future generations.
- How do you use go down in history in a sentence?
- She would later go down in history as the third victim of Jack the Ripper.
- What part of speech is go down in history?
- Go down in history is a verb.
- What is the past tense of go down in history?
- The past tense of go down in history is went down in history.
Words near go down in history in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: go down in history (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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Cite this entry: “go down in history.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_down_in_history. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.