Word.ws English Dictionary

go off halfcocked

go off halfcocked 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 halfcocked

third-person singular presentgoes off halfcocked
present participlegoing off halfcocked
pastwent off halfcocked
past participlegone off halfcocked

Questions about go off halfcocked

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

Words near go off halfcocked in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go off halfcocked (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 halfcocked.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_off_halfcocked. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.