go to town
Idioms-
Also, go to town on.
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Do something efficiently and energetically. For example, She really went to town, not only developing and printing the film but making both mat and frame . [Early 1900s]
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Act without restraint, overindulge, as in He went to town on the hors d'oeuvres, finishing nearly all of them . [Early 1900s]
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Be successful, as in After months of hard work, their business is really going to town . [Mid-1900s]
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.
Penelope smiled at their eagerness to go to town; she hoped they would be as cheerful about traveling all the way to Heathcote, a far longer and more exhausting trip.
From Literature
“So, when you have a bunch of excess nitrogen, microbes go to town and they start using it for fuel. But some of it leaks out of their metabolism and it comes out as this air pollutant.”
From Los Angeles Times
“The Fed was very clear in their dot plot,” he said, “and I don’t know why the markets decided to double it and then go to town on that.”
From New York Times
If I needed to jot down a few notes in a pinch, and I was staring down at a CIA briefing on the latest Russian military posturing, I’d totally flip that bad boy to the blank backside and go to town.
From Slate
Plus, the beavers would go to town on some of the park’s trees.
From Slate
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.
