Meaning
To accept a situation as it develops instead of resisting it or insisting on a plan; to be easygoing and adapt to whatever others are doing or to changing circumstances. Informal and usually approving, though it can imply passivity. Informal and relaxed in tone; mildly critical when it suggests a person never asserts themselves. Regional use: General English (American origin).
Origin
The idiom is 20th-century American. The Online Etymology Dictionary first attests 'go with the flow' by 1977 and says it was apparently originally skiing jargon, quoting a 1980 Ski magazine passage advising skiers to 'go with the flow, enjoy the forces' rather than fight the motion. Popular accounts sometimes derive it from Roman Stoicism, citing Marcus Aurelius on letting life carry you, or link it to the psychological 'flow state' of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, but these are parallels of imagery rather than documented ancestry: the water metaphor is ancient, while the English phrase is attested only from the late 1970s and spread through casual American speech afterwards.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- going with the flow
- gone with the flow
- just go with the flow
- went with the flow
Usage Examples
- I had a strict itinerary for Lisbon, but I decided to go with the flow and ended up wandering the old streets all day.
- In a busy restaurant kitchen you learn to go with the flow or the dinner rush will flatten you.
- He is not precious about the design; he goes with the flow whenever the client changes the brief.