Word.ws English Dictionary

went begging

went begging is the simple past of go begging.

Meaning of go begging

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To be available but wasted, unused, or not actualized.
    • "Principles without leaders go begging," he replied.1904, David Graham Phillips, chapter 18, in The Cost

Questions about went begging

What is went begging the simple past of?
Went begging is the simple past of go begging.

Words near went begging in the dictionary

  1. went ballistic
  2. went balls up
  3. went bananas
  4. went bankrupt
  5. went batshit
  6. went begging
  7. went belly-up
  8. went below
  9. went berserk
  10. went between
  11. went beyond

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: went begging (page history and authors); go begging (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: “went begging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/went_begging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.