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

In the station concourse a young soldier with a Kalashnikov slung across his back was hugging his girlfriend before she left to go west and he went back to his unit.

From BBC • Feb. 24, 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

He’s got a simple charge: Protect me, advance me to go west.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 21, 2022

The initial Gothic uprising that sparked the beginning of the end for the west was in the Balkans, but the Goths were then convinced to go west.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2020

“I remember the way. I go north to go south, east to go west, back to go forward. And to touch the light I have to pass beneath the shadow.”

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

Related Words

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