to go above and beyond
26
3.7
- phrasal verb
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- There was a nurse at the hospital who went above and beyond.
Loyalty is when you go above and beyond for your squad.
- Loyalty is when you go above and beyond for your squad.
- And I recently had the honor of surprising an incredible teacher from Chicago who's going above and beyond for her students.
- But the concept of multiple truths goes above and beyond just cognitive dissonance, though it's a big part of it.
- So there's so many strategic layers to to go above and beyond just the training for me.
- And so we have to do have to go above and beyond.
- This is another act of you could say going above and beyond.
Examples
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And when he joined the team, it was great to see him go above and beyond without me asking.
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Our public servants have been going above and beyond meeting all the needs, but they can't do it without resources.
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And so I thought to myself, OK, how can I go above and beyond for you, my audience?
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I am not one to give extra credit, but you have gone above and beyond the requirements of my student.
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For the past few days, I have gone above and beyond.
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I mean, you really, really went above and beyond.
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Great stories happen when someone goes above and beyond what is expected.
Blog text (11) -
Everyone at the firm went above and beyond for my case.
Blog text (16) -
And I recently had the honor of surprising an incredible teacher from Chicago who's going above and beyond for her students.
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Beth just started with us, but really went above and beyond to get her dancers ready for tonight.
Synonyms
201
3.6
To exceed a limit or what people expect
53
3.5
Make a special effort to do something, often to help someone
53
5.6
To do something more extreme than people expect
39
4.1
To try as hard as you can with a lot of energy
39
5.3
To try very hard to do more than usual
26
4.1
Try very hard to make something happen
24
4.9
To try very hard to help someone or make them happy
1
5.3
To do better than people expect and have more success
1
5.9
To try very hard and do anything to achieve something
1
6.9
To make a big effort beyond your usual limits
To work as hard as you can, often more than expected
Antonyms
How Much Effort
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to do more than required' is directly derivable from combining 'go' (to move/act) with the sense of 'beyond' (past or exceeding) — 'go beyond' clearly conveys exceeding a limit, and 'above and' simply intensifies that idea. This compositional metaphor (to exceed expectations) is common across languages and follows transparent semantic extension, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would very likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Go above and beyond may come from a simple image: instead of stopping at what is asked, someone goes above it and then goes beyond, doing extra work. That's why it now means 'to do more than expected'.