go west

Idioms  

1. Die, as in He declared he wasn't ready to go west just yet. This expression has been ascribed to a Native American legend that a dying man goes to meet the setting sun. However, it was first recorded in a poem of the early 1300s: “Women and many a willful man, As wind and water have gone west.”

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

go west

Americans today likely don’t realize just how difficult it was for young men to take Horace Greeley’s advice and go west, especially to California.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026

Route 66 was 20 years old and World War II had just ended when Bobby Troup, an aspiring songwriter from Pennsylvania, decided to go west.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026

Story left the Cincinnati area in 1979 to go west and find her biological father, traveling to Las Vegas with two male friends, police said.

From Washington Times ● Dec. 20, 2023

“You go west, what do they have? They have a skatepark. They have a dog park. They have concession stands,” Moise said.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 25, 2022

The best thing to do, it being fall, was to head south or west for the winter, and because I didn’t want to go south I decided to go west.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Related Words

• betray
• bolt
• depart
• escape
• flee
• forsake
• give up
• quit
• vacate