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Glite Dictionary
to go steady

to go steady

19 6.0
To have a regular romantic relationship with just one person
  • phrasal verb
  • Archaic
translation icon : ser novios
  • After dating casually for a while, they decided to go steady and see where their relationship would lead.
  • ask her to go steady
  • want to go steady
  • think we should go steady

Examples

  • Rosy and I are going steady now.

    The First Time (1969)

  • Maybe he'll ask me to go steady.

    Boys on the Side (1995)

  • "and you asked me to go steady."

    CrissCross (1992)

  • Are we going steady now?

    All at Once (2016)

  • His wife had died three years ago, and he had been going steady with my mom for two.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • How long were you and this guy going steady?

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Does this mean we're going steady?

    Fiction book (1997)

  • She told you that she wanted to go steady with me?

    That's What I Am (2011)

  • We've been going steady since, uh, Tuesday.

    Fedora (1978)

  • We'd gone steady all during high school.

    Fiction book (2001)

Synonyms

to see
vsto go steady
  • Informal
∞ 1.0

To have a romantic relationship with someone

is specifically an exclusive romantic relationship rather than casual social meetings
to date
vsto go steady
∞ 1.3

To go out with someone in a romantic way

is a regular exclusive romantic partnership rather than occasional meetings
to go out
vsto go steady
740 2.4

Date someone regularly

is an exclusive regular partnership rather than an open arrangement

Antonyms

to break up
  • Informal
678 2.6

End a relationship with someone, for example a romantic or business partner

How Committed

to marry
∞ 1.0
to go steady
  • Archaic
19 6.0
to date
∞ 1.3
to see
  • Informal
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

go steady infinitive
went steady past
gone steady past participle
going steady present participle
go steadies third person singular

Morphology

go + steady

The phrase literally reads as 'go' (become) + 'steady' (stable/regular), so a learner can partly infer a sense of becoming stable or settled; however, the specific sense 'enter an exclusive romantic relationship' is a conventionalized collocation and not fully predictable from the parts alone. Because the romantic/exclusive nuance and idiomatic use are conventional rather than strictly compositional, a B1 learner who only knows the constituents may not reliably derive the intended meaning without prior exposure.

Etymology

Go steady likely comes from the simple image of two people moving forward together: the word go and the word steady give the picture of a relationship that keeps going without change. So it came to mean 'to have a regular, exclusive romantic relationship'.