Word.ws English Dictionary

watch the world go by

watch the world go by verb: to pause and remain still whilst doing nothing but surveying the environment around oneself.

Verb

watch the world go by (third-person singular simple present watches the world go by, present participle watching the world go by, simple past and past participle watched the world go by)

  1. (UK, idiomatic) To pause and remain still whilst doing nothing but surveying the environment around oneself.
    • I think I'll just sit under this tree and watch the world go by.
    • Watching the world go by is so much fun that I have to tear myself away to catch my next service - LNER's 'Highland Chieftain' worked by a bi-mode Class 800 Azuma, [...].2022 November 30, Paul Bigland, “Destination Oban: a Sunday in Scotland”, in RAIL, number 971, page 75

Forms of watch the world go by

third-person singular presentwatches the world go by
present participlewatching the world go by
past participlewatched the world go by
pastwatched the world go by

Questions about watch the world go by

What does watch the world go by mean?
Watch the world go by means to pause and remain still whilst doing nothing but surveying the environment around oneself.
What part of speech is watch the world go by?
Watch the world go by is a verb.
What is the past tense of watch the world go by?
The past tense of watch the world go by is watched the world go by.

Words near watch the world go by in the dictionary

  1. watch the birdie
  2. watch the feathers fly
  3. watch the fur fly
  4. watch the pennies
  5. watch the world burn
  6. watch the world go by
  7. watch this space
  8. watch timing machine
  9. watch timing machines
  10. watch tower
  11. watch towers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: watch the world go by (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-watch the world go by.wav.

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