gone
UK/ɡɒn//ɡɔn/
gone is the past participle of go.
gone is the alternative spelling of gon /gon'.
Adjective
gone (comparative further gone or farther gone or goner, superlative furthest gone or farthest gone or gonest)
- Away, having left.
- Are they gone already?
- No longer existing, having passed.
- The days of my youth are gone.
- All hopes for a truce are gone.
- Used up.
- I'm afraid all the coffee is gone.
- If the milk is all gone, we'll drink our coffee black.
- Broken, failed.
- The bulb is gone. Can you put a new one in?
- The car isn't driveable — the steering is gone.
- Dead.
- Dust, that a breath could blow aside, yet that was once, like ourselves, animate with hope, passion, and sorrow, is below; around are the vain memorials of human grief and human pride; yet all alike dedicated to the gone.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Marriage”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 221
- Doomed, done for.
- Have you seen the company's revenue? It's through the floor. They're gone.
- Not fully aware of one's surroundings, often through intoxication or mental decline.
- Don't bother trying to understand what Grandma says; she's gone.
- [S]he put on a kind of sing-song voice whenever she was pissed, it was one of the signs that she was really gone[…].1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section III, page 28
- Infatuated; in love (+ on, for, in).
- I am, of course, ‘gone’ for you.1902, Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
- But he was pleased and happy and flattered. She was evidently frightfully gone on him.1915, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 35, in Of Human Bondage, Vintage, published 2000
- Excellent, wonderful; crazy.
- It was a group of real gone cats.
- “All right, all right, don’t drop your gold all over the place. I have found the gonest little girl in the world and I am going straight to the Lion’s Den with her tonight.”1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 11, in On the Road, London: Penguin Books, published 1976, →ISBN, part 1, page 61
- Ago (used post-positionally).
- Six nights gone, your brother fell upon my uncle Stafford, encamped with his host at a village called Oxcross not three days ride from Casterly Rock.1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 491
- Weak; faint; feeling a sense of goneness.
- Of an arrow: wide of the mark.
- Used with a duration to indicate for how long a process has been developing, an action has been performed or a state has persisted; especially, pregnant.
- She’s three months gone
Meaning of go
Verb
go (third-person singular simple present goes, present participle going, simple past went or (obsolete) yode or (nonstandard) goed, past participle gone or (nonstandard) went)
- To move through space (especially to or through a place). (May be used of tangible things such as people or cars, or intangible things such as moods or information.)
- Why don’t you go with us?
- To move or travel through time (either literally—in a fictional or hypothetical situation in which time travel is possible—or in one's mind or knowledge of the historical record). (See also go back.)
- Yesterday was the second-wettest day on record; you have to go all the way back to 1896 to find a day when more rain fell.
- To navigate (to a file or folder on a computer, a site on the internet, a memory, etc.).
- For the best definitions, go to wiktionary.org
- To move (a particular distance, or in a particular fashion).
- We've only gone twenty miles today.
- To move or travel in order to do something, or to do something while moving.
- We went swimming.
- To leave; to move away.
- Please don't go!
Preposition
gone
Forms of gone
| comparative | further gone |
|---|---|
| comparative | farther gone |
| comparative | goner |
| superlative | furthest gone |
| superlative | farthest gone |
| superlative | gonest |
Origin of gone
From Middle English gon, igon, gan, ȝegan, from Old English gān, ġegān, from Proto-Germanic *gānaz (“gone”), past participle of *gāną (“to go”). Cognate with West Germanic Scots gane (“gone”), West Frisian gien (“gone”), Low German gahn (“gone”), and Dutch gegaan (“gone”).
Words formed from gone
- all gone
- be gone
- boldly go where no man has gone before
- bygone
- da arse is gone right out of 'er
- day gone by
- dead and gone
- downgone
- far gone
- game's gone
- get you gone
- gone aloft
- gone bad
- gone by lunchtime
- gone case
- gone coon
- gone fishing
- gone goose
- gone north about
- goner
- goneski
- gonesome
- Gonesville
- gone with the wind
- gone wrong
- gone-zo
- just gone
- real gone
- the arse has gone clean out of 'er
- the arse has gone out of 'er
- the arse has gone right out of 'er
- the arse is gone right out of 'er
- to hell and gone
- too far gone
- ungone
- waygone
- yesterday is gone
- yesterday's gone
- you never know what you've got till it's gone
Phrases with gone
171 more phrasesFewer phrases
- gone mad
- gone nap
- gone off
- gone out
- gone away
- gone awry
- gone back
- gone brrr
- gone bust
- gone dark
- gone deep
- gone down
- gone easy
- gone face
- gone free
- gone Galt
- gone gold
- gone hang
- gone hard
- gone home
- gone into
- gone left
- gone long
- gone nuts
- gone over
- gone past
- gone phut
- gone poof
- gone sing
- gone soft
- gone sour
- gone west
- gone wide
- gone wild
- gone with
- gone about
- gone after
- gone ahead
- gone along
- gone amiss
- gone at it
- gone below
- gone cases
- gone cheap
- gone coons
- gone crazy
- gone cunch
- gone Dutch
- gone fetal
- gone forth
- gone geese
- gone green
- gone in on
- gone moggy
- gone on by
- gone potty
- gone rogue
- gone round
- gone short
- gone snake
- gone south
- gone there
- gone under
- gone viral
- gone abroad
- gone around
- gone astray
- gone beyond
- gone for it
- gone H.A.M.
- gone halves
- gone hungry
- gone in off
- gone mental
- gone nap on
- gone narrow
- gone native
- gone places
- gone postal
- gone public
- gone strong
- gone to bat
- gone to bed
- gone to pot
- gone to sea
- gone to war
- gone toilet
- gone up for
- gone whacks
- days gone by
- gone a raker
- gone against
- gone all out
- gone apeshit
- gone back on
- gone back to
- gone bananas
- gone batshit
- gone begging
- gone berserk
- gone between
- gone bonkers
- gone bye-bye
- gone cahoots
- gone country
- gone down on
- gone haywire
- gone hostile
- gone in unto
- gone in with
- gone missing
- gone nowhere
- gone nuclear
- gone on fire
- gone quietly
- gone through
- gone to heck
- gone to hell
- gone to plan
- gone to seed
- gone to shit
- gone to show
- gone to town
- gone to work
- gone too far
- gone towards
- gone walkies
- gone walking
- gone whistle
- gone without
- come and gone
- gone a mucker
- gone about to
- gone balls up
- gone bankrupt
- gone belly-up
- gone commando
- gone downhill
- gone downtown
- gone equipped
- gone for gold
- gone halfsies
- gone it alone
- gone negative
- gone or blown
- gone platinum
- gone straight
- gone to earth
- gone to grass
- gone to pains
- gone to press
- gone to sleep
- gone to smash
- gone to waste
- gone to water
- gone together
- gone way back
- gone a cropper
- gone backwards
- gone ballistic
- gone both ways
- gone down with
- gone five-hole
- gone for broke
- gone gaga over
- gone Hollywood
- gone on record
- gone on strike
- gone overboard
- gone Pete Tong
- gone so far as
Words that rhyme with gone
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- mon
- qanon
- scone
- swan
- thereupon
- tick on
- wan
- a ton
- chignon
- con
- electron
- got it going on
- jupon
- ron
- soupçon
- thereon
- Toulon
- whereupon
- Yonne
- -hon
- -plon
- agone
- begone
- bent on
- build on
- build upon
- c'mon
- catch oneself on
- chron
- cock on
- Comecon
- conn
- cop oneself on
- Gabon
- garçon
- hither and yon
- hon
- macron
- microraion
- mont
- Perpignan
- phon
- pon
- raion
- shone
- sine qua non
- sine quibus non
- Sir John
Questions about gone
- What does gone mean?
- Gone means away, having left.
- What is gone the past participle of?
- Gone is the past participle of go.
- What part of speech is gone?
- Gone can be an adjective or a preposition.
- How do you pronounce gone?
- Gone is pronounced /ɡɒn/ (UK).
Words near gone in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gone (page history and authors); go (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-us-gone.ogg.
Cite this entry: “gone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.