Word.ws English Dictionary

going straight

going straight is the present participle and gerund of go straight.

Meaning of go straight

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To discontinue engaging in criminal acts; to become a law-abiding person.
    • "Oh," said Jimmy, "if I ever want any one to break into a safe, come to you, huh?"
      "You get me," replied the other. . . .
      "I should think," said Jimmy, "that a man of your ability could earn a living by less precarious methods." "You would think so," replied the Lizard. "I've tried two or three...1921, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 3, in The Efficiency Expert

Questions about going straight

What is going straight the present participle and gerund of?
Going straight is the present participle and gerund of go straight.

Words near going straight in the dictionary

  1. going soft
  2. going sour
  3. going south
  4. going spare
  5. going steady
  6. going straight
  7. going strong
  8. going the distance
  9. going the entire animal
  10. going the entire swine
  11. going the extra mile

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: going straight (page history and authors); go straight (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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