go for the jugular
go for the jugular verb: synonym of go for the throat.
Verb
go for the jugular (third-person singular simple present goes for the jugular, present participle going for the jugular, simple past went for the jugular, past participle gone for the jugular)
- Synonym of go for the throat.
- You start to admire the flagrant disregard
For the sanctity of other people's lives
By the filthy few in positions of power
Who go for the jugular in order to survive1985, J. G. Thirlwell, “Anything (Viva!)”, in Nail, performed by Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel - The cover story of last July's Journal was on hardball litigation tactics. It quoted lawyers talking about pulling out all the stops, going for the jugular.1988 March 1, “Litigation is War–True or False?”, in ABA Journal, retrieved 29 Mar 2011, page 8
- Synonyms:
- go for the throat
- You start to admire the flagrant disregard
Synonyms of go for the jugular
Forms of go for the jugular
| third-person singular present | goes for the jugular |
|---|---|
| present participle | going for the jugular |
| past | went for the jugular |
| past participle | gone for the jugular |
Questions about go for the jugular
- What does go for the jugular mean?
- Go for the jugular means synonym of go for the throat.
- What part of speech is go for the jugular?
- Go for the jugular is a verb.
- What is the past tense of go for the jugular?
- The past tense of go for the jugular is went for the jugular.
Words near go for the jugular in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: go for the jugular (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 for the jugular.ogg.
Cite this entry: “go for the jugular.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_for_the_jugular. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.