Word.ws English Dictionary

gone off the boil

gone off the boil is the past participle of go off the boil.

Meaning of go off the boil

Verb

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

  1. (Australia, UK) To cease to boil when heat is no longer applied.
    • All puddings must be boiled in plenty of water, turned frequently, kept closely covered, and never allowed to go off the boil.1891, Nelson A. Dunning, editor, The Farmers' Alliance History and Agricultural Digest
  2. (Australia, UK, idiomatic) To lose interest; to pall.
    • As one of the rearguard put it, "We laid up until the Hun had gone off the boil a bit and slipped out the following night."1955, John Baker White, The Big Lie
  3. (Australia, UK, idiomatic) To diminish in intensity or urgency.
  4. (Australia, UK, idiomatic) To become less successful.

Questions about gone off the boil

What is gone off the boil the past participle of?
Gone off the boil is the past participle of go off the boil.

Words near gone off the boil in the dictionary

  1. gone off at score
  2. gone off half-cocked
  3. gone off into the weeds
  4. gone off on a tangent
  5. gone off on one
  6. gone off the boil
  7. gone off the handle
  8. gone off the res
  9. gone off the reservation
  10. gone off the rez
  11. gone on

Source and license

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