Word.ws English Dictionary

goes to the wall

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

Meaning of go to the wall

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To make an all-out effort.
    • He'll be the one who goes to the wall when it's needed.
  2. (idiomatic) To fail, to run out of options. (especially of a business)
    • While he was doing his stories, and « getting on » in the world, Tevershall was going to the wall.1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IX, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, page 125
  3. (idiomatic) To be put aside or forgotten.
  4. (idiomatic) To take an extreme and determined position or measure.

Questions about goes to the wall

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

Words near goes to the wall in the dictionary

  1. goes to the polls
  2. goes to the restroom
  3. goes to the scaffold
  4. goes to the toilet
  5. goes to the trouble
  6. goes to the wall
  7. goes to the washroom
  8. goes to the well
  9. goes to town
  10. goes to town on
  11. goes to war

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: goes to the wall (page history and authors); go to the wall (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: “goes to the wall.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/goes_to_the_wall. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.