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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

go to seed en · VERB

Pronunciation

Meanings

  1. (of a plant) To pass from flowering or ripening to the formation of seeds.
    • Wild tomatoes, which had gone to seed or been remorselessly hoed out from the beginning of Berande, were foraged for salads, soups, and sauces. 1911, Jack London, Adventure:
  2. (broadly, figuratively) To deteriorate; to decline into an unkempt or debased condition.
    • But suppose I hang about till eighty and die a childish old gentleman with a mind all gone to seed. 1919, Jerome K. Jerome, All Roads Lead to Calvary:
    • But the "frump" will let herself and all her surroundings go to seed, not from humbleness of mind or an overwhelming sense of her own unworthiness, but in pure complacent conceit. 1898, Eliot Gregory, Worldly Ways and Byways:
    • I found that slick and graceful enough at 25. Now, with marriages going to seed all around me, it is the insight, the penetration, that makes me smile/wince. 2023 May 28, Janan Ganesh, “Right on the money”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2:
    • […] if this total Taliban takeover and collapse was one of the contingencies that […] President [Joe] Biden had foreseen, then how come this plan […] went to seed so rapidly? 2021 August 19, 27:45 from the start, in NewsHour (television production), Peter Meijer (actor), Public Broadcasting System:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
went to seed Tense=Past lexicographic
goes to seed Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic
gone to seed Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
going to seed Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic

Translations (15)

de verwahrlosen (to deteriorate) · de herunterkommen (to deteriorate) · fi rappeutua (to deteriorate) · pl przejść do etapu nasion (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · es granar (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · ga dul chun síl (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · de vergammeln (to deteriorate) · de schießen (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · mi puarere (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · pl podupadać (to deteriorate) · de Samen bilden (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · pl podupaść (to deteriorate) · pl przechodzić do etapu nasion (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · fi lakastua (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds) · de in Samen schießen (plant: to pass to the formation of seeds)