1803. Kenney, Raising the Wind, i., 3. Ha! ha! ha! Capital go, isn’t it? 1820. Jack Randall’s Diary. Gemmen (says he), you all well know The joy there is whene’er we meet; It’s what I call the primest go, And rightly named, ’tis—quite a treat. 1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 251. A considerable bustle and shuffling of feet was then heard upon the stage, accompanied by whispers of ‘Here’s a pretty go!—what’s to be done?’ 1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘Misadventures at Margate.’ ‘O, Mrs. Jones,’ says I, ‘look here! Ain’t this a pretty go!’ 1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 162. Stating his conviction that this was rayther a rummy go. 1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxxiii. Master Frank Clavering ... had only time to ejaculate the words, ‘Here’s a jolly go!’ and to disappear sniggering. 1869. Mrs. H. Wood, Roland Yorke, ch. xli. ‘I am about to try what a month or two’s absence will do for me.’ ‘And leave us to old Brown?—that will be a nice go!’ 1876. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, ch. vii. A rum go as ever I saw. 1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, pledge xvi. He ... exclaimed, ‘Well, I’m dashed if this isn’t a rum go!’ 1883. R. L. Stevenson, Treasure Island, p. 55. A pretty rum go if squire aint to talk for Doctor Livesey. 1891. N. Gould, Double Event, p. 305. ‘It was a near go,’ said Jack. 3. (common).—The fashion; the cheese (q.v.); the correct thing. Generally in the phrase all the go. 1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. He is quite the go, he is quite varment, he is prime, he is bang up. 1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry [ed. 1891], p. 35. Tom was the go among the goes. 1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xiv. Whatever is the go in Europe will soon be the cheese here. 1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, I., 251. It was rather the go With Pilgrims and Saints in the Second Crusade. 1846. Punch, vol. X., p. 163. From lowly Queen’s quadrangle, Where muffins are the go. 1880. G. R. Sims, Ballads of Babylon (Beauty and Beast). And all day long there’s a big crowd stops To look at the lady who’s all the go. 4. (colloquial).—Life; spirit; energy; enterprise; impetus: e.g., plenty of go = full of spirit and dash. Fr.: avoir du chien. 1825. The English Spy, i., 178. She’s only fit to carry a dean or a bishop. No go in her. 1865. Macdonald, Alec Forbes of How-glen, II., 269. All night Tibbie Dyster had lain awake in her lonely cottage, listening to the quiet heavy go of the water. 1882. Daily Telegraph, 9 Oct. Mr. Grossmith’s music is bright and tripping, full of humour and go, as, under such circumstances, music should be! 1883. Illustrated London News, 10 March, p. 242, c. 3. There was any amount of dash and go in their rowing.