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Synonyms

go bad

Idioms  

  1. Spoil, decay; also, turn to crime. For example, You can tell from the smell that this milk has gone bad, or If he keeps running around with that street gang, he's sure to go bad. [Late 1800s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to prove that’s the case—or that the good won’t go bad.

From Barron's • Mar. 20, 2026

“Whatever asset you’re looking at people are on a knife’s edge regarding leverage and that doesn’t have to go bad; that can go very very well before it goes very, very bad,” he said.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 18, 2026

Across rebel-held cities and towns, supermarket shelves sit empty while crops wither in inaccessible fields and go bad at rebel checkpoints.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 16, 2026

"The outage only lasted a day and now we have so much food, but most of it isn't going to go bad, as it is easily preserved."

From BBC • Apr. 29, 2025

His job was to identify for BlackRock the bonds that were going to go bad before they went bad.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.