Goto

//ˈɡəʊ.tuː// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any construct which produces an unstructured jump in the flow of execution.

    "The setjmp/longjmp facility in C is essentially a GOTO."

  2. 2
    Alternative letter-case form of GOTO. alt-of

    "Overall, experience in the two decades that followed the publication of Dijkstra's letter showed the folly of producing goto-laden code."

Verb
  1. 1
    To reach (a point in a program) by means of a GOTO instruction.

    "If we were GOTOed from 310 we GOTO 320."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname from Japanese.

Example

More examples

"Professor Goto directed my graduate work."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From go to, a keyword for this purpose in many programming languages.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Japanese 後藤 (Gotō).

Related phrases

GOTO-less

More for "goto"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.