Word.ws English Dictionary

gone bad

gone bad is the past participle of go bad.

Adjective

gone bad (not comparable)

  1. Of foods and commodities, having become spoiled, rotten, or otherwise unusable due to age or storage conditions.
  2. Of a person or entity, having ceased to be reputable and having instead become delinquent, criminal, or poorly behaved.
  3. Of a region or area, having become unsafe.
  4. Of a delinquent or criminal act, having unexpectedly become more violent than is typical for that act—having resulted in an attack on a victim leading to serious injury or death.
    • a drug deal gone bad, a robbery gone bad
    Synonyms:
    gone wrong

Meaning of go bad

Verb

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

  1. To spoil, rot, or otherwise become unusable due to age or storage conditions.
  2. to cease to be reputable and instead become delinquent, criminal, immoral, corrupt or poorly behaved.
    Synonyms:
    break bad, go to the bad, turn evil
  3. To become unsafe.

Synonyms of gone bad

Questions about gone bad

What does gone bad mean?
Gone bad means of foods and commodities, having become spoiled, rotten, or otherwise unusable due to age or storage conditions.
What is gone bad the past participle of?
Gone bad is the past participle of go bad.
What part of speech is gone bad?
Gone bad is an adjective.

Words near gone bad in the dictionary

  1. gone back on
  2. gone back to
  3. gone back to the drawing board
  4. gone back to the tools
  5. gone backwards
  6. gone bad
  7. gone ballistic
  8. gone balls up
  9. gone bananas
  10. gone bankrupt
  11. gone batshit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gone bad (page history and authors); go bad (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: “gone bad.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gone_bad. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.