Word.ws English Dictionary

go off at halfcock

go off at halfcock is the alternative form of go off half-cocked.

Meaning of go off half-cocked

Verb

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

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) To take a premature or ill-considered action.
    • Make sure none of your men go off half-cocked and ruin this operation.

Forms of go off at halfcock

third-person singular presentgoes off at halfcock
present participlegoing off at halfcock
pastwent off at halfcock
past participlegone off at halfcock

Questions about go off at halfcock

What is go off at halfcock the alternative form of?
Go off at halfcock is the alternative form of go off half-cocked.

Words near go off at halfcock in the dictionary

  1. go nuclear
  2. go nuts
  3. go off
  4. go off at a tangent
  5. go off at half cock
  6. go off at halfcock
  7. go off at score
  8. go off half-cocked
  9. go off halfcocked
  10. go off into the weeds
  11. go off on a tangent

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go off at halfcock (page history and authors); go off half-cocked (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 off at halfcock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_off_at_halfcock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.