go down in history

English

Verb

go down in history (third-person singular simple present goes down in history, present participle going down in history, simple past went down in history, past participle gone down in history)

1. Be sufficiently noteworthy as to be remembered by future generations.

   Synonym: make history

   • 2021 February 6, Graham Bean, “Scotland beat England at Twickenham for the first time in 38 years”, in The Scotsman‎^[1]:

     Captain Stuart Hogg and his team will now go down in history as the side who were able to slay England in their own den, emulating Jim Aitken’s heroes of ’83.

   • 2021 April 15, “From United Kingdom to Untied Kingdom”, in The Economist‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Mr Johnson was elected Prime Minister to get Brexit done. […] His single most important task for the rest of his term in office is to hold the Union together. If he fails, he will go down in history not as the man who freed the United Kingdom, but as the man who destroyed it.

Translations

Translations

• Finnish: jäädä historiaan
• French: faire date (fr), faire époque (fr), entrer dans l’histoire
• German: in die Geschichte eingehen
• Italian: passare alla storia
• Polish: przechodzić do historii impf, przejść do historii (pl) pf
• Russian: войти́ в исто́рию (vojtí v istóriju)
• Swedish: gå till historien

Further reading

• “go down in history” (US) / “go down in history” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “go down in history”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “go down in history”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “something will go down in history” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.