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Forgo   Listen
verb
Forgo  v. t.  (past forwent; past part. forgone; pres. part. forgoing)  
1.
To pass by; to leave. See 1st Forego. "For sith (since) I shall forgoon my liberty At your request." "And four (days) since Florimell the court forwent."
2.
To abstain from; to do without; to refrain from; to renounce; said of a thing already enjoyed, or of one within reach, or anticipated. See 1st forego, 2. Note: This word in spelling has been confused with, and almost superseded by, forego to go before. Etymologically the form forgo is correct.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Forgo" Quotes from Famous Books



... Foresters; and William I, says Mr Rawle, 'probably reserved to himself the forest rights, for the Conqueror, according to the Saxon Chronicle, "loved the tall deer as though he had been their father," and would scarcely be likely to forgo any privileges concerning the vert and venison.' Various tenures show that later Kings kept Exmoor as a preserve. Walter Aungevin held land in Auri and Hole (near South Molton) under Edward III, 'by sergeantry ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... that with one hounde wol take also Two harys togyther in one instant For the moste parte doth the both two forgo, And if he one have: harde it is and skant And that blynd fole mad and ignorant That draweth thre boltis atons[A] in one bowe At one marke shall shote to[o] high or to[o] lowe. He that his mynde settyth god truly to serve ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... favour with the powerful they not only connive at the injustice done by their own partners in political gambling, but participate in it. A perpetual anxiety for the protection of their gains at any cost strikes at the love of freedom and justice, until at length they are ready to forgo liberty ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... purposed to lie for some days. He was an old man, very feeble, and much depending upon her constant care. Wherefore it was necessary that the rooms of all the party should adjoin, and there was no suite of the size in the inn save that which I had taken. Would I therefore consent to forgo my right, and place her ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... and with their Eyes downwards, as if they were mad, that they may thus rush into the Net, without being beforehand troubled at the Thought of so miserable a Destruction. Their Wills are so perverse, and their Hearts so fond of the Pleasures of the Place, that rather than forgo them they will run all Hazards, and venture upon all the Miseries ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... we had a wise economic system, for all who have mental needs to find satisfaction for them. By a few hours a day of manual work, a man can produce as much as is necessary for his own subsistence; and if he is willing to forgo luxuries, that is all that the community has a right to demand of him. It ought to be open to all who so desire to do short hours of work for little pay, and devote their leisure to whatever pursuit happens to attract them. No doubt the great ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell

... it is true that, though I did not sit with any one of these rules in my head; but just as I got out of a Cab, etc., yet the success of the Thing made me consider afterward why it succeeded; and I have now read you my Lecture on the Subject. Pray do not forgo your Intention—nay, your Promise, as I regard it—to sit, and send ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... the bow was in the hands of Eurymachus, who was warming it by the fire, but even so he could not string it, and he was greatly grieved. He heaved a deep sigh and said, "I grieve for myself and for us all; I grieve that I shall have to forgo the marriage, but I do not care nearly so much about this, for there are plenty of other women in Ithaca and elsewhere; what I feel most is the fact of our being so inferior to Ulysses in strength that we cannot string ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... the Bishop, after a moment of rapid thought, "I must forgo the melancholy luxury of meditating upon my folly, until after we have taken prompt measures, so far as may be, to put right the mischief it ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... meeting there rather than indoors. This was agreed. But it then transpired that Cantilupe, who was to have read the paper, had brought nothing to read. He had forgotten, or he had been too busy. At this discovery there was a general cry of protest. Cantilupe's proposition that we should forgo our discussion was indignantly scouted; and he was pressed to improvise something on the lines of what he had intended to write. This, however, he steadily declined to attempt; and it seemed as though the debate would fall ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... would bar his passage time to effect their deliverance and to leave the road clear? I very much fear that logic has carried your deductions beyond the bounds of reality. Rationally speaking, my dear sir, nothing could be more accurate than your inferences; and yet we must forgo the theory of the strange inversion which you suggest. None of the Bramble-bees with whom I have experimented behaves after that fashion. I know nothing personal about Odynerus rubicola, who appears to be a stranger ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... person with permanently jet-black hair and twinkling eyes. Prepared to forgo all else save elegance, she had brought up her gorgeous niece with the idea that it was never possible to have too much luxury. Seated in the Gorgeous Girl's dressing room she now presented excellent proof that the world was ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... Ivan stammered, his eyes looking at her adoringly. "All the same I would cheerfully forgo all the pleasures of the chase to ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... career, but the Debating Society, the political movement, all his work for Humanity.... Why not be resolute—even now?... Why not put the thing clearly and plainly to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get the advantage of the evening at the Library. He must ask her to forgo these walks home—at least until the next examination. She would understand. He had a qualm of doubt whether she would understand.... He grew angry at this possibility. But it was no good mincing matters. If once he began to consider her—Why should he consider her in that ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... her skirt down with her hands and brushed exploring fingers from her blouse. But the island women were not easily repulsed. They were ready to give their babies to her if she asked for them. They would not forgo if they could help it the delight of examining new and fascinating kinds of clothes. Miss Daisy—still Miss Daisy, not a queen—burst from them and ran, with tossed hair and ruffled garments, up the ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... Hartletop was a friend of the Duke of Omnium's. Mr. Mark Robarts was certainly elated when he ascertained who composed the company of which he had been so earnestly pressed to make a portion. Would it have been wise in him to forgo this on account of the prejudices ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... feet were frost- bitten badly. Some of us jumped over and pulled him into a dry place. It was a rather rough experience for Blackborrow, but, anyhow, he is now able to say that he was the first man to sit on Elephant Island. Possibly at the time he would have been willing to forgo any distinction of the kind. We landed the cook with his blubber-stove, a supply of fuel and some packets of dried milk, and also several of the men. Then the rest of us pulled out again to pilot the other boats through the channel. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... which, he explains, was kept "either seven years the same day that her day falleth in March, and then begin, or one year with bread and water." Whatever fasts a vowess might neglect as non-obligatory, it seems probable that she would not willingly forgo any opportunity of showing reverence to the Blessed Virgin, who, in the belief of St. Augustine, had taken vows of chastity before ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... days of Wilbur Wright, who died at Dayton on the 30th of May 1912. In 1913, by arrangement between the parties, a test action was begun against the British Government. When the war broke out, and the trial of this action was still pending, the supporters of the Wrights hastily met, and offered to forgo all their claims for fifteen thousand pounds, a sum substantial enough to establish the Wrights' priority, yet merely nominal as a payment for the benefits conferred. So the matter was settled. The last thoughts of Wilbur Wright were given, not to financial profits, but to further developments ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... he had intended to do. Perhaps he had expected to dig up and gnaw a choice bone that he had buried somewhere. It might be that he had been planning to chase the cat, or tease Turkey Proudfoot in order to hear him gobble. There wasn't one of those pleasures that Spot wouldn't gladly forgo for the sake of ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey

... if one must forgo the masters, masterpieces might be had for their price. For ten thousand marks—day ever to be remembered!—a genuine work of "the Urbinate," from the cabinet of a certain commercially-minded Italian grand-duke, was on its way to Rosenmold, anxiously awaited ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... Frontenac could see no reason why even the wilderness-colony of New France should forgo the rightful forms and functions of a royal province. His mind wandered back regretfully to the old days of the Estates General, which the kings of France were carefully burying in the cemetery of disuse. Technically ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... it in books, but not in men. But you have [the saying] about the righteous man, that the law of his God is in his heart,[115] not in a codex. Nor is that the standard of perfection. The perfect man is ready to forgo even necessaries. But that is beside the mark.[116] Would that some limit were set on superfluous things! Would that our desires were not infinite! But what? Perhaps you might find one who can achieve this. It would ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... transaction to which you gave your approval. It may be morally wrong to keep you, but the whole darned frame-up was morally wrong. So morals don't come into it—savvy? Legally I got a claim to my—goods, and you're asking me to forgo that claim. But you don't show much regret at taking a hand in that ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... them from their enterprise. Even in the days of printing language takes a long time to crystallize down into accepted forms, correct and incorrect. You may see Dutchess with a t at Blenheim, well within the eighteenth century, and forgo has only recently decided to give up its e. In the days of manuscripts men spelt pretty much as they pleased, making very free even with their own names; and uncritical copyists, caring only to reproduce the word, and not troubling about the ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... uncle, but the less surety we have to keep it, since it is a great commodity to have it, so much more the loth we are to forgo it. ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... or so ago was contrasting Mr. Asquith's eloquent appeals to the working man to economise and forgo any rise in wages with the photographs that were appearing simultaneously in the smart papers of the very smart marriage of Mr. Asquith's daughter. I submit that by that sort of standard none of us will be blameless. But without any condemnation, ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... reward; for I have freed you not from tyranny alone, but from the fear of tyranny, and by removing the heir of iniquity have made your salvation sure. And now it seems that my services are to go for nothing; I, the preserver of the constitution, am to forgo the recompense prescribed by its laws. It is surely from no patriotic motive, as he asserts, that my adversary disputes my claim; rather it is from grief at the loss of the tyrants, and a desire to ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... 'If it be so, Then wot I well I must forgo Love-liking, and manhood, all clean!' The water rush'd out of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... beauties which, however attractive, were incompatible with those. Vague suggestion, complexity of thought, strangeness of imagination—to us the familiar ornaments of poetry—were qualities eschewed by the masters of the age of Louis XIV. They were willing to forgo comprehensiveness and elaboration, they were ready to forswear the great effects of curiosity and mystery; for the pursuit of these led away from the high path of their chosen endeavour—the creation, within the limits they had marked out, of works of flawless art. The fact ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... extravagant; for the romance of his heroines (in which they abound) is only an excess of the habitual prejudices of their sex, scrupulous of being false to their vows, truant to their affections, and taught by the force of feeling when to forgo the forms of propriety for the essence of it. His women were in this respect exquisite logicians; for there is nothing so logical as passion. They knew their own minds exactly; and only followed up a favourite idea, which they had sworn to with their tongues, and which was engraven on their ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... Despair, even when Death has done his work. How grateful the one is to that beneficent philosopher who made him at peace with himself, and tolerant and kindly toward his fellow-creatures! how importunate the other that God should forgo His divine mercy, and hurl everlasting torments both upon the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... If we take a house and settle down, we must give up our nice, warm little rooms at the old Wagons-Lits, forgo all the amusing gossip of the lobby, told in such frankness by the interesting people who know things, or think they do. They say housekeeping is not difficult here. You engage a "number-one boy," who engages the rest of the servants, and any one of ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte

... down the agents of extortion to whom he owed the wealth inherited from his economical sire. Henry in fact was blessed with the most valuable of all possessions for a ruler of men, a magnetic personality, which made his servants ready to go through fire and water, to stifle conscience, to forgo their own ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... oven, pan and kettle is not essential to a healthy diet, but few people in this changeable, and often cold, depressing climate are willing to forgo their occasional use. One cannot get hot water for a drink without a kettle or a small saucepan and a gas ring, and hot water is often a very comforting and useful drink, especially where an effort is being made to break off the tea ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... all with a blush and bow, in sign of obedience; but when his uncle told him the States would send away his mistress; no longer able to contain his rage, he broke out into all the violence imaginable against them, and swore he would not now forgo Sylvia to be monarch over all the nasty provinces, and it was a greater glory to be a slave at her feet. 'Go, tell your States,' cried he,—'they are a company of cynical fops, born to moil on in sordid business, who never were worthy to understand so great a happiness of life ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... earth, and you read the discussions on the question whether your old friend WILLIAM ought to be hanged, it can hardly have escaped Your Nosiness that nothing is said about your own claim to similar treatment. Those who never rightly appreciated you may imagine that you will meekly consent to forgo that claim. But, if I know anything of your proud and princely nature, you are, on the other hand, bitterly chagrined at the thought that you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... future or the unexperienced parts of the past or present, assume the inductive principle; hence we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question. Thus we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectations about the future. If the principle is unsound, we have no reason to expect the sun to rise to-morrow, to expect bread to be more nourishing than a stone, or to expect that if we throw ourselves ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... 'There is something very strange about my going to the post-office this morning—I had my arrangements all made to go with a party, this morning early, to the bay, fishing; but, when I awoke, I had such an impression to go down to the post-office, that I had to forgo the pleasure of going to the bay, and went to the post-office and found ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... perfectly convinced that this opinion of your Majesty, so graciously expressed, removed every doubt and difficulty from Lord Ellenborough's mind, and decided him to forgo every personal consideration rather than appear unmindful of such a favourable impression of his qualifications for public service on ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... Our fires are makeshifts for sunshine. Autumn after autumn, 'we see the swallows gathering in the sky, and in the osier-isle we hear their noise,' and our hearts sink. Happy, selfish little birds, gathering so lightly to fly whither we cannot follow you, will you not, this once, forgo the lands of your desire? 'Shall not the grief of the old time follow?' Do winter with us, this once! We will strew all England, every morning, with bread-crumbs for you, will you but stay and help us to play at summer! But the delicate cruel rogues pay no heed ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... that she should remember her ways and should be ashamed, when she should receive her sisters Samaria and Sodom, and that He would give them to her for daughters, but not by her covenant.'[32] The 'covenant' which the Church is to be content to forgo in order to recover Samaria and Sodom (the 'Free Churches' can hardly be expected to relish this method of opening negotiations) is apparently the covenant between Church and State. 'In the future the Anglican Church must ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... to householders not to put broken glass in their swill. With all imports of glass-ware cut off, it is felt that even our pigs must be required to forgo some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various

... must not suppose yourself the only one of her children she understands." Hetty, being human, could not forgo this little slap. "Now wash your face, like a good girl, and come down to supper: and afterwards you shall tell me all the news of home. There's one thing"—and she eyed Patty drolly—"I can trust you to ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Peggy not to expect me at the cottage until the afternoon; everything was in such order that there was no necessity for me to forgo the morning service. My promise to Phoebe Locke would keep me a prisoner for the evening, but I determined that her sister and Kitty should be set free to go to church, so my ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... have been to Daisy, his wish and his desire were more essential. She could without struggle forgo the pleasure of being with him, now that he had said that it was ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... other hand, we have sometimes to do as Jesus was driven to do in this incident; namely, to forgo cheerfully, after brief repose, the blessed and strengthening hour of quiet. The motives of the crowds that hurried round the head of the lake while the boat was pulled across, and so got to the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... extent, to forgo dreaming in order to find the way, he reached the churchyard, and passed round it under the wall where several ancient trees grew. There was a wide margin of grass along here, and Gabriel's footsteps were deadened by its softness, even ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... sympathize with him. I doubt, therefore, whether my appearance in New York would not tend to make divisions rather than to heal them, to do harm rather than good. I am so earnestly desirous to succeed in the election that I would even forgo a self- ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... and you will always love him. This thought is my only solace.' Vainly the astonished and terrified husband sought to retain her. Bidding him farewell for ever, she vanished into the tree. Needless to say that the samurai did everything in his power to persuade the daimyo to forgo his purpose. The prince wanted the tree for the reparation of a great Buddhist temple, the San-jiu-san-gen-do. [21]' The tree was felled, but, having fallen, it suddenly became so heavy that three hundred men could not move it. Then the child, taking a branch in his little ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... Pylos. The men that dwell there are rich in cattle and sheep; they will honour him with gifts as though he were a god, and be obedient to his comfortable ordinances. All this will I do if he will now forgo his anger. Let him then yield; it is only Hades who is utterly ruthless and unyielding—and hence he is of all gods the one most hateful to mankind. Moreover I am older and more royal than himself. Therefore, let him now ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... scolded for massacring rabbits, never listens to the voice of conscience. In fact, she hardly seems as if she could help doing so, and appears to think, like the naughty boy of the story, that, in spite of the beating, the fun was too great to forgo. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... passage to the silver star of Section Seven. It need only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as a neutral. Could I but once set foot in Germany, I was quite ready to depend on my wits to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I must forgo. That was the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... forceth all creatures into the inevitable course. O foremost of men what for is this grief of thine? Grief should not be indulged in, O foremost of learned persons! Grief is an impediment to action. Accomplish that act which should be accomplished. The grief that maketh a person forgo all efforts is, indeed, O Dhananjaya, an enemy of that person. A person, by indulging in grief, gladdens his foes and saddens his friends, while the person is himself weakened. Therefore, it behoveth thee not ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... instinct within him forbade him to end his own life, none could doubt his right to alleviate his mental suffering by any means he knew; and when temporary oblivion, a blessed forgetfulness, could be purchased at the price of a pinprick, it seemed not only overscrupulous but foolish to forgo that Nirvana. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... measures should be used as would excite a mob or riot which might be the case if she has adherents; or even uneasy sensations in the minds of well-disposed citizens. Rather than either of these should happen, I would forgo her services altogether and the example also which is ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... war had not caused these gentry to forget or forgo a single one of the ancient wiles that for half a century their kind has practised upon American tourists and others who didn't care what else they did with their money so long as they were given a chance to spend it for something they didn't particularly want. Yep; those charged ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb

... weapon-winged murder leaped together Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless, 290 And ancient women and gray fathers wail Their childless age;—if you should roast the rest— And 'tis a bitter feast that you prepare— Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded; Forgo the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer 295 Pious humanity to wicked will: Many have bought ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... to France along with the other Comoros in 1843. It was the only island in the archipelago that voted in 1974 to retain its link with France and forgo independence. ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Hotel was to be closed in October, there was talk of turning Johnny loose or of sending him to the Washington Zoo; but Norah had claims that she would not forgo. ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... next 4 years the States can use this money in either of two ways. If they want to continue receiving Federal grants in such areas as transportation, education, and social services, they can use their trust fund money to pay for the grants. Or to the extent they choose to forgo the Federal grant programs, they can use their trust fund money on their own for those or other purposes. There will be a mandatory pass-through of part of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... pleasant; in winter quite the contrary, even when the cloister and carrells were screened, as at Durham and Christ Church, Canterbury. Imagine the poor scribe rubbing his hands to restore the sluggish circulation, and being at last compelled to forgo his labour because they were too numbed to write. Cuthbert, the eighth-century abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, writes to a correspondent telling him he had not been able to send all Bede's works which were required, because the cold weather of the preceding winter had paralysed ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... rather comic. Romer's mother, who was going to a dinner-party in the same street, could not forgo the pleasure of calling unexpectedly on them at half-past seven, vaguely hoping that it might be inconvenient to them, and that she would catch them in something they didn't want her to know—a true mother's instinct. But not in her wildest dreams had she expected what she saw when she entered ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... asked for an explanation, had pointed out that if he had been treated as per his working arrangement with the police at Clydebank, there would have been no trouble whatever. As for his day off, he was willing to forgo his day's pay and call the thing square. However, a hidebound C.O. had fined him five shillings and sentenced him to seven days' C.B. Consequently he was in no mood for Royal Reviews. He stated his opinions upon the subject in a loud voice and at some length. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... turn, thy cares forgo; All earth-born cares are wrong: 30 Man wants but little here below, Nor ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... Hugo; his house has been converted into a museum, and it is there that the most interesting relics of the great poet are stored. I unburdened my mind to Mildred, and my enthusiasm enkindled in her an interest sufficient to induce her to go there with me, for I could not forgo a companion that day, though she was far from being the ideal companion for such sentimental prowling as mine. Afterwards we visited Notre Dame together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the historical sense, I am afraid, for as we ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore



Words linked to "Forgo" :   give up, waive, predate, antecede, antedate, relinquish, forfeit, dispense with, throw overboard, lapse, kick



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