go without saying
go without saying verb: to not need to be said or mentioned; to be obvious, apparent, clear, or already established.
Verb
go without saying (third-person singular simple present goes without saying, present participle going without saying, simple past went without saying, past participle gone without saying)
- To not need to be said or mentioned; to be obvious, apparent, clear, or already established.
- It goes without saying that our volunteers love their work.
- It almost goes without saying that the train is fully soundproofed, with double-glazed windows and highly efficient air-conditioning by the British firm of J. Stone.1960 March, G. Freeman Allen, “Europe's most luxurious express - the "Settebello"”, in Trains Illustrated, page 141
Forms of go without saying
| third-person singular present | goes without saying |
|---|---|
| present participle | going without saying |
| past | went without saying |
| past participle | gone without saying |
Origin of go without saying
Calque of French aller sans dire.
Questions about go without saying
- What does go without saying mean?
- Go without saying means to not need to be said or mentioned; to be obvious, apparent, clear, or already established.
- What part of speech is go without saying?
- Go without saying is a verb.
- What is the past tense of go without saying?
- The past tense of go without saying is went without saying.
Words near go without saying in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: go without saying (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 without saying.ogg.
Cite this entry: “go without saying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_without_saying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.