Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to have an affair or relationship with someone, to have sexual intercourse with.

[1600		Munday & Drayton Sir John Oldcastle II i: A plump girl. Ha, Doll, ha! Wilt thou forsake the priest, and go with me, Doll?].
[1661		‘The Tinker’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 146: Sir, I have with the Tinker been, / The best in all the Town].
1834		‘Those London Mots’ Bang-Up Songster 39: If you can sport a bob or two, / Those London mots will go with you.
1888		S.O. Addy Sheffield Gloss. 94: Go with, to court a woman.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India II 124: I’ll go with you, but if your friend likes I’ll go to him, or he can come to me when you are done. Buttered Buns! said my friend laughing.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 July 12/2: Ye gods, I’m puzzled! Answer me someone. Has a girl any hold on, or is she engaged to, a man who goes with her, and what is the meaning of ‘goes’; and, further, what are the intentions of a young man who ‘goes’ with a young woman?
1911		J. Masefield Everlasting Mercy 67: [He] Who never worked [...] But poached and stole and gone with women, / And swilled down gin enough to swim in.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 348: She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off the accomodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and coarse men.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 94: ‘Ain’t a Bowery broad would go wid yer, ye little Yap,’ shouted a tall drunken man.
1935		(con. late 1920s) L. Hughes Little Ham Act II: tiny: Who you goin’ with, Sugar Lou? sugar lou: A new hot papa [...] that is, if I can sneak away from my butter and egg man.
1941		K.S. Prichard ‘Marlene’ in Mann Coast to Coast 29: The girl’s eyes smiled back at her. ‘I been going with two or three boys in town.’.
1943		‘Henry Green’ Caught (2001) 160: Can you remember after you’ve been with ’em?
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 63: She’d reproach him for going with other girls.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 362: Meanwhile, Stackolee went with the devil’s wife and with his girl friend, too. / Winked at the devil and said, I’ll go with you.
1963		N. Dunn Up the Junction 3: I wouldn’t mind goin’ with a married man ’cept I couldn’t abear him goin’ home and gettin’ into bed with his wife.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 82: It wasn’t long after [...] that she’d started going with Red Shirt Charlie.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 68: I didn’t want everybody to know I was going serious with a young thing.
1984		‘Derek Raymond’ He Died with His Eyes Open 48: Our marriage nearly broke up when I found he’d been going with her.
1985		B. Robinson Aussie Bull 10: [H]e’d be going with four or five at the same time.
1985		J. Morrison Share House Blues 66: Marcus is in low spirits. His girlfriend has broken off with him. He had been going with her for three months, now all at once she wants to be ‘just friends’.
1992		R.C. Cruz Straight Outta Compton 12: ‘Billy, will you go with me?’ she asked.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 329: I drive off, still annoyed with Claire for going with that old bastard.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 25: The chances of someone like myself going with her was so laughable.
2001		(con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 117: ‘Ashley was going with Lance, then Dee-Dee, now she go with him’.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 145: ‘Ryan had told her about it years back. That he’d been with his neighbour’.

2. to go around with, to be friends with.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 92: If Mame goes with me she goes as a girl.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 52: What come of that girl you used to go with?

3. to accept and act upon a plan or suggestion.

1977		C. McFadden Serial 62: You’ve gotta learn to get behind pain. Really go with it.
2005		B. Coleman Rakim Told Me 100: ‘My name, Special Ed, didn’t come until around that same time. [...] [M]y boy Eric Green from the neighborhood gave me the name. [...] I was never in the special education program at school, of course, but I guess he thought it sounded good, so I went with it’.