Word.ws English Dictionary

letting oneself go

letting oneself go is the present participle and gerund of let oneself go.

Meaning of let oneself go

Verb

let oneself go (third-person singular simple present lets oneself go, present participle letting oneself go, simple past and past participle let oneself go)

  1. (idiomatic) To relax and enjoy oneself without restraint.
    • Fill your lungs up, and let it out slowly. Let it out slowly and relax as you exhale. […] Just let yourself go, (name), and relax.2010, Bradley W. Kuhns, Investigative Hypnosis for Investigators
  2. (idiomatic) To cease to care about one's appearance, allowing oneself to become unkempt, overweight, etc.
    • To be frank, you are an appalling sight at this very moment; you have let yourself go — but I have known you look quite ravishing.2012, Fay Weldon, The Fat Woman's Joke, page 5

Questions about letting oneself go

What is letting oneself go the present participle and gerund of?
Letting oneself go is the present participle and gerund of let oneself go.

Words near letting oneself go in the dictionary

  1. letting one loose
  2. letting one off
  3. letting one's guard down
  4. letting one's hair down
  5. letting one's nuts hang
  6. letting oneself go
  7. letting out
  8. letting past
  9. letting sleeping dogs lie
  10. letting slide
  11. letting slip

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: letting oneself go (page history and authors); let oneself 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.

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