Word.ws English Dictionary

went off the boil

went off the boil is the simple past of go off the boil.

Meaning of go off the boil

Verb

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

  1. (Australia, UK) To cease to boil when heat is no longer applied.
    • All puddings must be boiled in plenty of water, turned frequently, kept closely covered, and never allowed to go off the boil.1891, Nelson A. Dunning, editor, The Farmers' Alliance History and Agricultural Digest
  2. (Australia, UK, idiomatic) To lose interest; to pall.
    • As one of the rearguard put it, "We laid up until the Hun had gone off the boil a bit and slipped out the following night."1955, John Baker White, The Big Lie
  3. (Australia, UK, idiomatic) To diminish in intensity or urgency.
  4. (Australia, UK, idiomatic) To become less successful.

Questions about went off the boil

What is went off the boil the simple past of?
Went off the boil is the simple past of go off the boil.

Words near went off the boil in the dictionary

  1. went off at score
  2. went off half-cocked
  3. went off into the weeds
  4. went off on a tangent
  5. went off on one
  6. went off the boil
  7. went off the handle
  8. went off the res
  9. went off the reservation
  10. went off the rez
  11. went on

Source and license

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