get going

English

Verb

get going (third-person singular simple present gets going, present participle getting going, simple past got going, past participle (UK) got going or (US) gotten going)

1. (intransitive) To leave, or depart.

   It is quite late, I'd best get going before sunset.

2. (intransitive or transitive) To begin or commence.

   We'd better get this project going. If we don't get going on it soon, we won't finish in time.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     We toted in the wood and got the fire going nice and comfortable. Lord James still set in one of the chairs and Applegate had cabbaged the other and was hugging the stove.

3. (transitive) To excite intellectually.
   • 1986, Forum:

     She got him going with all these stories, and then she'd leave him, and he'd be up all night trying to figure out the end.

   • 2014, Werner Breunig, Jürgen Wetzel, Fünf Monate in Berlin: Briefe von Edgar N. Johnson aus dem Jahre 1946, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, →ISBN, page 63:

     He [Johnson] and my father could talk shop for hours and hours, and my father got a lot of stimulation – my father was also tense and bright but more quiet, less adventurous – he needed Edgar and Edgar's strong opinions and mercilessly sharp mind to get him going.

4. (transitive) To arouse sexually.
   • 1948, Journal of Clinical Psychology: Monograph Supplement:

     During the preliminaries I, as usual, "got her going" by irritation of the clitoris, among other things.

   • 2010, Kyell Gold, Out of Position, Kyell Gold, →ISBN, page 46:

     Besides, it's always seemed necessary to get him going. Now, tonight, it's more out of habit, because when I get a paw past his pants, he's already rock hard and it's clear that he got himself going without my help.

   • 2014, Gina Frangello, A Life in Men: A Novel, Algonquin Books, →ISBN, page 278:

     Later Irv would claim her skin trembled—really fucking vibrated—under his hands as though she were an overcharged electric blanket, as though she could send off sparks and shock him, and how that really got him going.

5. (intransitive) To talk passionately without interruption.
   • 1987, Klaus Burghardt, Great Commonwealth Stories, Ernst Klett Sprachen, →ISBN, page 29:

     Once she got going about my wages and everything else she had to pay out. She couldn't keep the wolf from the door, she said.

   • 2013, Joe Colicchio, As Told By Monk, First Edition Design Pub., →ISBN:

     Mo was doing most of the talking and even though he's a good guy, once he gets going about Betty you can forget it for the rest of the night.

   • 2013, Kempton Mooney, The Committee, FKM Books, page 222:

     “He's always got a story and when he gets going, you aren't going to bring him back for a while.”

6. (transitive) To cause someone to talk passionately without interruption.
   • 1999, Irena Vrkljan, Sibelan Elizabeth S. Forrester, Celia Hawkesworth, The Silk, the Shears and Marina; Or, About Biography, Northwestern University Press, →ISBN, page 47:

     I got him going about the moon or stars, he would fall into that trap, he forgot about his questions and for hours talked to me about the universe.

   • 2009, Wayne Caldwell, Cataloochee: A Novel, Random House, →ISBN:

     Then she'll start in about seeing all these robins we've been having lately, and next thing vou know she's quoting 'ere a sparrow that tails and that gets her going about that king turning into a bird in Daniel.

   • 2014, R J ODonnell, France, the Soul of a Journey, Troubador Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 110:

     The visit to La Devinière got her going about her great childhood deprivation

7. (intransitive, of a baby) To cry or bawl loudly.