gonna
UK/ɡən.ə//ˈɡʌn.ə/
gonna verb: a modal used to express a future action that is being planned or prepared for in the present.
Verb
gonna
- A modal used to express a future action that is being planned or prepared for in the present.
- I'm gonna hafta find a new job soon.
- Well, you ain't got much longer to laugh. I'm coming, and I'm gonna put one in your dirty hide for every lying crack that you made about me, see?1931, Mervyn LeRoy, Little Caesar
Examples of gonna in a sentence
- If you wanna get inside, you're gonna have to crow open that door.
- Looks like it's gonna take a taller person to get that down.
- Dude, you drive a beat car like that and you ain’t gonna get no honeys.
Forms of gonna
| alternative form | gon |
|---|---|
| alternative form | gon' |
| alternative form | gunna |
| alternative form | gonner |
| alternative form | gunner |
| alternative Internet | gna |
Origin of gonna
Contraction of going to. Attested since 1913 (OED, "gonna"). The pronunciation of present participles with the sound n rather than ng has a long history (see g-dropping on Wikipedia).
Words formed from gonna
Phrases with gonna
Words that rhyme with gonna
Questions about gonna
- What does gonna mean?
- Gonna means a modal used to express a future action that is being planned or prepared for in the present.
- What part of speech is gonna?
- Gonna is a verb.
- How do you pronounce gonna?
- Gonna is pronounced /ɡən.ə/ (UK).
Words near gonna in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gonna (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-gonna.ogg.
Cite this entry: “gonna.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gonna. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.