Word.ws English Dictionary

go Galt

go Galt verb: to become a recluse and stop contributing to society, especially in the form of taxes, by reducing one's work or productivity or by refusing to follow societal norms that one believes to be unjust.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To become a recluse and stop contributing to society, especially in the form of taxes, by reducing one's work or productivity or by refusing to follow societal norms that one believes to be unjust.
    • Smith, who’s still mulling over ways that she can “go Galt,” sees a possibility for a moral stand. During the Iraq War, she read about a painter who’d painted less, reducing his income, in order to dodge taxes and thereby make sure he didn’t fund the war.2009 March 6, David Weigel, “Battling Obama by ‘Going Galt’”, in The Washington Independent, archived from the original on 23 Nov 2012
    • We job creators are not going to take it. We are going Galt! Just like in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, we are gonna leave you parasites behind and relocate to an island where only rich people can live — Manhattan!2012 November 6, The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert (actor), via Comedy Central

Forms of go Galt

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

Origin of go Galt

After John Galt, a fictional character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged.

Questions about go Galt

What does go Galt mean?
Go Galt means to become a recluse and stop contributing to society, especially in the form of taxes, by reducing one's work or productivity or by refusing to follow societal norms that one believes to be unjust.
What part of speech is go Galt?
Go Galt is a verb.
What is the past tense of go Galt?
The past tense of go Galt is went Galt.

Words near go Galt in the dictionary

  1. go from zero to hero
  2. go fuck oneself
  3. go fuck your mother
  4. go fuck yourself sideways
  5. go gaga over
  6. go Galt
  7. go gentle into that good night
  8. go get 'em
  9. go Godwin
  10. go gold
  11. go great guns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go Galt (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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