going off

present participle of go off
1
as in exploding
to break open or into pieces usually because of internal pressure specialists were able to deactivate the bomb before it went off

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

2
3

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of going off Druski played a nightmare birthday girl in another sketch going off on her friend Tina (Veronika Slowikowska) for eating fajitas and wearing a black bodycon dress. — Glenn Garner, Deadline, 7 Nov. 2026 Next came Wild Horse Nine’s John Malkovich, who won the Best Actor prize at Venice for his performance as a CIA assassin going off the rails. — Nate Jones, Vulture, 9 Oct. 2026 Amid the confusion of going off course to get the injured girl to safety and then trying to return to the race, Villarreal got sidetracked. — Steve Millar, Chicago Tribune, 8 Oct. 2026 Equipment is becoming more accessible, but just horror inherently has always been a more accessible genre than something like going off to make a period drama that’s expensive. — William Earl, Variety, 28 Sep. 2026 Most bears stay with their mothers for two to three summers before going off on their own. — Popular Science Team, Popular Science, 25 Sep. 2026 Single-Node Contention Under Concurrent Agent Queries A distributed, scale-out architecture spreads those concurrent operations across many nodes, so adding agents means adding capacity rather than going off a cliff. — Gopi Duddi, Forbes.com, 4 Sep. 2026 Tadej Pogačar continued his impressive run at the Spanish Vuelta on Thursday, winning the sixth stage after going off track and nearly crashing on a quick descent. — ABC News, 27 Aug. 2026 The robbery was meticulously planned by the thieves; prior to the alarms going off at the museum, an alarm had gone off at the city’s sports center that authorities are calling suspicious. — Hikmat Mohammed, ARTnews.com, 27 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for going off
Verb
  • The series’ second season is invigorating, too, but in a different way, like an icy wind finding its way under your scarf, or a snowball exploding into a puff of powder on your face.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 5 Nov. 2026
  • It was rebroadcast around the country, and the exploding whale became a kind of mascot for Florence and a point of pride for many of its residents.
    — The New Yorker, New Yorker, 5 Nov. 2026
Verb
  • The company said the Versace integration is progressing on track, ahead of the creative debut of Pieter Mulier in 2027.
    — Luisa Zargani, Footwear News, 22 Oct. 2026
  • Port Eastside’s partners are progressing toward a winter groundbreaking for work on the $90 million reuse of 111 Founders Plaza into a 19-story upscale apartment complex.
    — Don Stacom, Hartford Courant, 22 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • At Prague's Vaclav Havel Airport, spokesperson Denisa Hejtmánková said a total of nine flights were threatened, including arriving flights from Denmark, Spain and Britain, and departing flights to the Netherlands, Cyprus, Romania, Italy and Britain.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 6 Nov. 2026
  • Departing from Dallas In Porter’s view, departing is the most stressful part of air travel.
    — Lauren Harano, Condé Nast Traveler, 6 Nov. 2026
Verb
  • Its construction required detonating explosives in the national monument, blasting apart an area called Monument Hill and outraging tribal leaders.
    — Ryan Devereaux, ProPublica, 2 Nov. 2026
  • Akhtar the author, though, is conducting a stealthy psyop aimed at detonating the certainties of combatants on both sides.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 1 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • If the idea of doing surgery on a raw turkey gives you a stress rash, ask your butcher to do it—even at the supermarket.
    — Andy Baraghani, Bon Appetit Magazine, 5 Nov. 2026
  • Even while every utopia contains the seeds of its opposite, so too does any dystopia provide, even briefly or contingently, intimations of a different way of doing things.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Nov. 2026
Verb
  • Stanichi is exiting Mattel at a transformative moment for the toy and entertainment company as well (though conversations about this move have been said to be months in the making).
    — Alex Weprin, HollywoodReporter, 5 Nov. 2026
  • At the same time, insurers are increasing premiums and, in some cases, exiting high-risk markets altogether, leaving some homeowners more exposed.
    — Mary Cunningham, CBS News, 4 Nov. 2026
Verb
  • The professional and business services sector, as the agency classifies it, gained 70,000 jobs, blowing past its average monthly gain of 15,000 over the past year.
    — Steve Kopack, NBC news, 6 Nov. 2026
  • Electric fireplaces produce heat by blowing air over heated coils or with infrared light and can be used with or without the heating function engaged.
    — BestReviews, Chicago Tribune, 6 Nov. 2026
Verb
  • Plus, what’s behind the apparent rise in families going no-contact?
    — TheWeek, TheWeek, 6 Nov. 2026
  • Unable to ensure the security of domestic infrastructure, Gulf energy companies will increasingly hedge by going global.
    — Matthew Martin, semafor.com, 5 Nov. 2026

Cite this Entry

“Going off.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/going%20off. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster