go off

verb

went off; gone off; going off; goes off

intransitive verb

1

a

: explode

b

of a gun : shoot sense 1

2

: to burst forth or break out suddenly or noisily

3

: to go forth, out, or away : leave

went off to join the army

4

: to undergo decline or deterioration

5

: to follow the expected or desired course : proceed

The party went off well.

6

: to make a characteristic noise : sound

could hear the alarm going off

7

: to stop working

All the lights suddenly went off.

see also:

go off the deep end go off with

Synonyms of go off

• explode
• detonate
• pop
• blow
• burst

Examples of go off in a Sentence

specialists were able to deactivate the bomb before it went off

the wedding went off without so much as a single glitch

Recent Examples on the Web

Watching shoot-first combo guards go off for 30 in a summer-league game is great fun, but most of those dudes don’t get to play with a neon-green light in a game that matters. — John Hollinger, New York Times, 22 July 2026

Video on social media shows flames outside the building – and someone tossing something into the flames, leading to what appears to be fireworks going off – before another person extinguishes the fire. — Brynn Gingras, CNN Money, 20 July 2026

To the casual observer, which is to say virtually everyone, a guardrail is just a long wavy strip of steel, about a foot wide, set thirty inches or so off the ground, which keeps a car from going off the road. — Charles Bethea, New Yorker, 20 July 2026

The surge includes many who went off track in 2024, when loan payments started coming due again after a pandemic-era freeze. — Heather Hollingsworth, Fortune, 20 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1560, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Rhymes for go off

• ashraf
• checkoff
• cutoff
• falloff
• handoff
• kickoff
• layoff
• liftoff
• markoff
• markov
• payoff
• playoff

Kids Definition

go off

verb

1

: explode sense 2b

2

: to burst forth or break out suddenly or noisily

3

: to take place : proceed

the dance went off as planned