Word.ws English Dictionary

go Pete Tong

go Pete Tong verb: to go wrong.

Verb

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

  1. (Cockney, slang) To go wrong.
    • But when Bobby got busted, it all went Pete Tong for him.2007, Robbie Fithon, Rainy City Players, page 95
    • It didn't take a brain surgeon to realize that things were obviously in danger of going Pete Tong. It was time to back off.2008, Dan Mills, Sniper One: On Scope and Under Siege with a Sniper Team in Iraq

Forms of go Pete Tong

third-person singular presentgoes Pete Tong
present participlegoing Pete Tong
pastwent Pete Tong
past participlegone Pete Tong

Origin of go Pete Tong

Named after disc jockey Pete Tong, coined by Paul Oakenfold in late 1987.

Questions about go Pete Tong

What does go Pete Tong mean?
Go Pete Tong means to go wrong.
What part of speech is go Pete Tong?
Go Pete Tong is a verb.
What is the past tense of go Pete Tong?
The past tense of go Pete Tong is went Pete Tong.

Words near go Pete Tong in the dictionary

  1. go pear shaped
  2. go pear-shaped
  3. go pearshaped
  4. go pedal
  5. go pedals
  6. go Pete Tong
  7. go phut
  8. go pill
  9. go pills
  10. go piss girl
  11. go pitapat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go Pete Tong (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 Pete Tong.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_pete_tong. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.