GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Go through the motions

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/goʊ θru ðə mˈoʊʃənz/ Listen

Go through the motions

verb

Pretend to do something by acting as if one was really doing it.

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Etymology of 'Go through the motions'

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"Go through the motions" Quotes from Famous Books

... a very bewildering thing—and thoughts do sometimes play the very will-o'-the-wisp with one. And when somebody you know is at a party, there is a funny inclination to go through the motions at least, and be up as late as anybody else. So it was with a somewhat sudden recollection that Mr. Rollo bethought him of what his watch might say. Just then he was in a belt of shadow, where trees crowded out ...

— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... company with the stump unbandaged—but anything would be better than the mopey Oliver of the last two weeks and a half, and Mrs. Crowe had been taught by a good deal of living the aseptic powers of having to go through the motions of ordinary life in front of a casual audience, even when it seemed that those motions were no longer of any account. So Oliver took clean flannels and a bitter mind to Southampton on the last day of August, and, as soon as he got off the train, was swung into a reel of ...

— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

Words linked to "Go through the motions" : pretend, make believe, make