Englishgo it alone
Meaning: To travel some path or do some activity by oneself, often something dangerous or risky.
Example: “Rather than find investors, she decided to go it alone.”
Origin: Documented from the mid-1800s, with the Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation from an 1895 banking journal. "It" here functions the way it does in a small family of similar idioms — a generic placeholder for whatever task or venture is being undertaken — while "alone" simply states the condition under which it's carried out, without help or company. No specific historical event or story is recorded behind the phrase; it reads as a natural 19th-century construction rather than one with a documented coinage of its own.
More English idioms
- go off half-cocked To do or say something in haste or without adequate planning or preparation.
- go off the deep end To become deeply involved with someone or something before one is ready; to go crazy.
- go over with a bang To be extremely successful.
- go over like a lead balloon To be completely unsuccessful, contrary to expectations; to fail.
- go to pieces To fall apart physically or emotionally; to lose one's self-control.
- go up in smoke To disappear; to be ruined.
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