Synonyms

go straight

Idioms

Become a law-abiding person; abandon crime. For example, Once he got out on probation, he swore he would go straight. The use of straight in the sense of “honest” dates from the 1500s and probably alludes to the opposite of crooked, used in the sense of “dishonest” from the 13th century on.

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.

See Examples For:

go straight

"They really do go straight to surgery only for the earliest stage tumors, which makes me think this was a very early stage tumor, and has a quite good prognosis."

From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2026

Which means that if the season ended today, the White Sox would go straight to the best-of-five division series, even though they have the fourth-best record in the league.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

And its defense team, anchored by the First Amendment firm Ballard Spahr, has used that obligation to go straight at the people closest to Trump on Jan. 6.

From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2026

"We are expected to just to carry on," he says, describing the instinct to go "straight back to work and school".

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

It was in just this sort of rash and foolhardy mood that Penelope decided not to go straight back to the nursery.

From "The Interrupted Tale" by Maryrose Wood

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