go in for
Appearance
English
[edit]Verb
[edit]go in for (third-person singular simple present goes in for, present participle going in for, simple past went in for, past participle gone in for)
- To enter a competition.
- (colloquial) To have an interest in or approve of something.
- 2016, Mary Lasswell, Let's Go For Broke[1]:
- "I hope she doesn't go in for big purple orchids," Miss Tinkham said to Mrs. Rasmussen, "there are so many pretty kinds."
- (colloquial) To engage oneself or take part in something.
- 1854, Charles Dickens, “Mr. James Harthouse”, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, book the second (Reaping), page 148:
- Jem, there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don't go in for statistics.
- 1979, Edmund Wilson, American Earthquake[2], page 140:
- "Why on earth do you go in for track?" I asked him. And then he explained that he thought that, if you wanted to be an all-around man, you ought to cultivate some form of athletics— he's actually taken up pole-vaulting: isn't that a ghastly thought?
- 2002, Margaret Oliphant, Phoebe Junior, page 270:
- It ain't their fault; I know heaps of nice girls who feel it horribly. What can they do? they can't go in for cricket and football.
References
[edit]- “go in for”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
- “go in for”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- "go in for" on UsingEnglish.com