"anything goes" meaning in English

See anything goes in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: en-au-anything goes.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{en-head|phr}} anything goes
  1. (idiomatic) There are no rules or restrictions. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: unrestricted, free, wild, fast and loose, debauched, promiscuous, unregulated, no-holds-barred, unlimited Translations (there are no rules of restrictions): tot s'hi val (Catalan), alles ist möglich (German), όλα επιτρέπονται (óla epitrépontai) (Greek), wszystko jest dozwolone [neuter] (Polish), vale tudo (Portuguese), всё что хо́чешь (vsjo što xóčešʹ) (Russian), todo vale (Spanish)
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          "text": "In olden days a glimpse of stocking\nWas looked on as something shocking\nBut now, Heaven knows,\nAnything goes.",
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          "ref": "2004, Charles Silverstein, Felice Picano, The Joy of Gay Sex: Fully Revised and Expanded Third Edition, page 228:",
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        "(idiomatic) There are no rules or restrictions."
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          "word": "debauched"
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          "word": "unregulated"
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          "word": "no-holds-barred"
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          "word": "unlimited"
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        {
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "lang_code": "ca",
          "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
          "word": "tot s'hi val"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "lang_code": "de",
          "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
          "word": "alles ist möglich"
        },
        {
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "lang_code": "el",
          "roman": "óla epitrépontai",
          "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
          "word": "όλα επιτρέπονται"
        },
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          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "lang_code": "pl",
          "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "wszystko jest dozwolone"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "lang_code": "pt",
          "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
          "word": "vale tudo"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "lang_code": "ru",
          "roman": "vsjo što xóčešʹ",
          "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
          "word": "всё что хо́чешь"
        },
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          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
          "word": "todo vale"
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      "word": "free"
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      "word": "fast and loose"
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      "word": "debauched"
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      "word": "no-holds-barred"
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      "lang_code": "ca",
      "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
      "word": "tot s'hi val"
    },
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      "lang": "German",
      "lang_code": "de",
      "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
      "word": "alles ist möglich"
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      "lang": "Greek",
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      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "lang_code": "pt",
      "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
      "word": "vale tudo"
    },
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      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "lang_code": "ru",
      "roman": "vsjo što xóčešʹ",
      "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
      "word": "всё что хо́чешь"
    },
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      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "there are no rules of restrictions",
      "word": "todo vale"
    }
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  "word": "anything goes"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.