| / English Dictionary |
GO BY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Be or act in accordance with
Example:
Go by this rule and you'll be safe
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "go by" is one way to...):
conform to; follow (behave in accordance or in agreement with)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something
Sense 2
Meaning:
Be called; go by a certain name
Example:
She goes by her maiden name again
Synonyms:
go by; go under
Classified under:
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something
Sense 3
Meaning:
Move past
Example:
One line of soldiers surpassed the other
Synonyms:
go by; go past; pass; pass by; surpass; travel by
Classified under:
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming
Hypernyms (to "go by" is one way to...):
go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "go by"):
skirt (pass around or about; move along the border)
run by (pass by while running)
fly by (pass by while flying)
fly by; whisk by; zip by (move by very quickly)
Sentence frames:
Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something
Sense 4
Meaning:
Pass by
Example:
three years elapsed
Synonyms:
elapse; glide by; go along; go by; lapse; pass; slide by; slip away; slip by
Classified under:
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming
Hypernyms (to "go by" is one way to...):
advance; go on; march on; move on; pass on; progress (move forward, also in the metaphorical sense)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "go by"):
fell; fly; vanish (pass away rapidly)
Sentence frames:
Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Context examples:
As our art is a very fine and delicate one, however, we cannot let a day go by without exercising ourselves in it, to which end we choose some quiet and sheltered spot where we may break our journey.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet that he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Let me stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying the shadow of myself, in dim procession.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
One year go by, two years go by.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
As you go by the 10:30 train, you will not have time to read them; but I shall get the bundle of papers.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The knight wished intensely that he could free them, but he was poor and could only go by each day, watching for the sweet face and longing to see it out in the sunshine.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Once, on the dancing-floor, he saw Lizzie Connolly go by in the arms of a young workingman; and, later, when he made the round of the pavilion, he came upon her sitting by a refreshment table.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He seemed to pursue her figure through the narrative, and to let every other shape go by him, as if it were nothing.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
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