- go
- go vb 1 Go, leave, depart, quit, withdraw, retire are comparable when they mean to move out of or away from the place where one is.Of these terms, go is the most general and the least explicit in its implications; it often is used merely as the opposite of come{
he came here yesterday and went this morning before I was up
}{go, baffled coward, lest I run upon thee— Milton
}{he would not let her go before he had obtained her promise to sell him the prop- erty
}{the men go and cut bamboos in the jungle and bring them to the beach— Frazer
}Leave (see also RELINQUISH, LET 2) so strongly implies a separation from someone or something that the verb in this sense is more often used transitively than intransitively; in its intransitive use the term commonly implies a more formal or a more conspicuous act than go implies and often requires a statement of the means of going{he plans to leave by the noon train
}{we shall be sorry to have him leave
}{Archipenko left Russia to enroll at the ÉCOIC des Beaux Arts in Paris— Current Biog.
}{do not leave the place until I return
}{her servants always leave her after a few days in her employ
}Depart (see also SWERVE) is rarely transitive except in a few idiomatic phrases{depart this life
}As an intransitive verb it not only carries a stronger implication of separation from a person, place, or status than leave carries, but it is somewhat more formal, especially when it is used as the opposite of arrive{depart on a trip to Europe
}{"You will not leave me yet, Richard?" .... He had no thought of departing— Meredith
}{a goddess of gone days, departed long ago— Millay
}Quit (see also STOP, 1, BEHAVE, 1), like leave, is more often transitive than intransitive and carries a strong implication of separation from a person or thing. Unlike leave, it stresses a getting free or being rid of what holds, en-tangles, or burdens{the distinction [knighthood] . . . had given him a disgust to his business, and to his residence in a small market town; and, quitting them both, he had removed with his family— Austen
}{he quitted London to take refuge among the mountains— Meredith
}{he quitted Cambridge in January 1643, before being formally ejected by the Puritans— Bush
}Withdraw stresses more than quit a deliberate removal for reasons that seem justifiable to the person concerned or acceptable to the reader; the term therefore seldom carries (as quit often carries) a suggestion of cowardice, weakness, or instability; thus, one quits a trying job, but one withdraws from an insecure position. Frequently withdraw implies such a motive as courtesy, a sense of propriety, or a grievance{the women withdrew from the room when the men were ready to discuss business
}{the visitors withdrew when the doctor entered
}{the perfect lyric is a poem from which the author has withdrawn once he has set it in motion— Day Lewis
}{a hermit withdrawn from a wicked world— Conrad
}Retire is often used interchangeably with withdraw, but it is especially appropriate when the removal also implies a renunciation, a permanent re-linquishing (as of a position), a retreat, or a recession{retire from the world into a monastery
}{when he dies or retires, a new manager must be found— Shaw
}{after the Captain's terrible fall . . . which broke him so that he could no longer build railroads, he and his wife retired to the house on the hill— Cather
}Often retire carries the specific sense of to withdraw to one's bedroom and to one's bed for the night{retire early
}Analogous words: *escape, decamp, abscond, flee, flyAntonyms: come2 *resort, refer, apply, turnContrasted words: avoid, shun, elude, evade, *escapego n *spell, shift, tour, trick, turn, stint, bout
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
