Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
give the go-by en · VERB
Meanings
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(archaic, transitive) To leave behind, outdistance.
Sliding Cube was taken on in front at Randwick and a couple of runners gave her the ‘go by’ when the field straightened.
2007 August 5, Sunday Mail:
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(transitive) To avoid dealing with; to disregard, ignore.
[T]hey express sweetly enough some natural sentiments,—and what more would you have in a song? You have had far more in some songs to which we have given the go-by[…]
1844, John Wilson, Essay on the Genius, and Character of Burns:To those other, those so august, accomplishments she no more pretended. She gave them the go-by.
1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson:
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(transitive) To snub (someone); to end a relationship.
"You're givin' me the go-by. Please, Jack, don't give me the go-by.[…]
Did you see him gi'me me the go-by? He's through. That's all—through."
1924 July 14 [1923 August 14], Samuel Badisch Ornitz, “Sixth Period”, in Haunch Paunch and Jowl, eighth printing, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright, section I, page 265:"If you mean to give him the go-by, you ought to do it cleanly […] and not string the fellow along."
2012, Christina Brooke, Mad About the Earl:
Forms