Word.ws English Dictionary

watching the world go by

watching the world go by is the present participle and gerund of watch the world go by.

Meaning of watch the world go by

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.

Questions about watching the world go by

What is watching the world go by the present participle and gerund of?
Watching the world go by is the present participle and gerund of watch the world go by.

Words near watching the world go by in the dictionary

  1. watching paint dry
  2. watching the birdie
  3. watching the feathers fly
  4. watching the fur fly
  5. watching the world burn
  6. watching the world go by
  7. watchingly
  8. watchingness
  9. watchings
  10. watchkeeper
  11. watchkeepers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: watching the world go by (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “watching the world go by.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/watching_the_world_go_by. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.