Word.ws English Dictionary

goes off

goes off is the third-person singular simple present indicative of go off.

Meaning of go off

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To explode.
    • The bomb went off right after the president left his office.
  2. (intransitive) To fire, especially accidentally.
    • The gun went off during their struggle.
  3. (figuratively, intransitive) To explode metaphorically; to become very angry or overexcited.
    • It all went off when the opposing teams' fans met at the railway station.
  4. (intransitive) To begin clanging or making noise.
    • The alarm will go off at six a.m.
  5. (intransitive) To stop operating; to switch off.
    • We were watching TV when suddenly the power went off.
  6. (intransitive) Of dairy cattle, to stop producing milk.
    • ‘I suppose no other mahn in th’ district feeds as well as I do, and yet they’re goin’ off - goin’ off to th’ very divil.’1911, ‘Steel Rudd’, The Book of Dan, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, published 1970, page 63

See all 19 meanings of go off

Questions about goes off

What is goes off the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Goes off is the third-person singular simple present indicative of go off.

Words near goes off in the dictionary

  1. goes night-night
  2. goes nowhere
  3. goes nowhere fast
  4. goes nuclear
  5. goes nuts
  6. goes off
  7. goes off at a tangent
  8. goes off at half cock
  9. goes off at halfcock
  10. goes off at score
  11. goes off half-cocked

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goes off (page history and authors); go off (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:

Cite this entry: “goes off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/goes_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.