Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An intentional slight; a snub.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An evasion; an escape by artifice.
  • noun A passing without notice; an intentional disregard, evasion, or avoidance: in the phrase to give or get the go-by.
  • noun The act of passing by or ahead in motion.
  • noun The second turn made by a hare in crossing.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A passing without notice; intentional neglect; thrusting away; a shifting off; adieu.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A passing without notice; intentional neglect; thrusting away.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "Well, think of hearing them, and Homer, and Witherspoon, and Amato, every night for nights and nights at the Metropolitan; and then to give it the go-by, and get to sea and shake down to watch and watch."

    CHAPTER X 2010

  • Well, if I'd had any sense, or an inkling of what lay years ahead, or been less flown with Voisin's arrack, I'd have given the business the go-by - but you know me: the promise of that photograph, and the thought of dear Otto smashing the chandelier in his wrath, were too much for my ardent boyish nature.

    Watershed 2010

  • Lo and behold, I had the same reaction upon giving HOSTEL a second go-by.

    2nd Chance Cinema: Hostel (2005) Arbogast 2008

  • She never stares at you through a glass, as if she did not know you, nor looks straight forward when she will not recognize you, and chooses to give you the go-by.

    The Curate and His Daughter, a Cornish Tale 2008

  • Herein also was she wise, to wit, how to give wrath the go-by, so that she oft found the wood a better home than the house: for now she knew that the witch-wife would enter it never; wherefore she loved it much, and haunted it daily if she might.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles 2007

  • But being made an honest woman of, so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs. Washington White the go-by in the Ring.

    Vanity Fair 2006

  • There's a governance structure that, if implemented, would be in the north-south -- but because of the North-South Agreement, could be a go-by for the Darfur region.

    CNN Transcript Mar 29, 2006 2006

  • Ay, you start, but you cannot dance in a net before me, as I said before; and so the king runs the frowning humour on you, and the Court vapours you the go-by; and the

    The Fortunes of Nigel 2004

  • But when you gird at him lovingly, and have as good as gotten him, lo! in the go-by of the river he is gone as a shadow goes, and only

    Lorna Doone Richard Doddridge 2004

  • With a light wind he would have had little fear of giving them the go-by, or on a dark night he might have contrived to slip between or away from them.

    Springhaven Richard Doddridge 2004

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