no gophr.adj.n.

1809 I. Pocock Hit or Miss ii. v. 47 It's no go, Jumble—I'm not to be had.

1825 C. M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I. 178 It won't do, no go Dick.

1829 T. Creevey Let. 20 Oct. in J. Gore Creevey's Life & Times (1934) xiv. 311 According to the Earl and myself, Fanny Kemble is no go.

1847 W. M. Thackeray Vanity Fair (1848) xxxiv. 305 You want to trot me out, but it's no go.

1857 ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 22 ‘Tick being no go.’ Credit not given.

1888 J. R. Lowell Heartsease & Rue 207 ‘You must rise’, says the leaven. ‘I can't’, says the dough; ‘Just examine my bumps, and you'll see it's no go’.

1912 J. London Let. 19 Nov. (1966) 368 No; I told Eliza, George is no go.

1949 W. S. Burroughs Let. 30 Jan. (1993) 38 When he saw it was no go, he cooled off in his relations with me.

1966 C. C. Walcutt Man's Changing Mask (1968) xi. 178 The painter..sets to work, but it’s no go. His pictures come out stiff and cold.

2000 R. Barger et al. Hell's Angel x. 177 I spent a couple of weekends by myself attempting to self-detox, but no go.

1829 Sporting Mag. 13 242 It would be pleasing..if some of the followers of the gallant varmint were to notice the blank days they have in this battue country, stating the names of the constantly ‘no go’ coverts.

1847 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 62 429/2 The jaundiced editor of some new no-go periodical.

1910 Engineering 22 July 118/2 There are ‘go’ and ‘no go’ gauges in use for holes, diameters, screw-threads, slots, [etc.].

1917 Amer. Machinist 20 Dec. 1073/1 The ruling diameters of each of these checks should not have a greater tolerance in any case, than +0.0001 in. for the no go checks and −0.0001 in. for the go checks.

1946 Pop. Mech. Feb. 138/2 To save time,..one foreman painted two bands of color on the gauge to distinguish the ‘go’ end from the ‘no-go’ end.

2008 R. Staley Einstein's Generation iii. 75 High-precision limit gauges—‘go’ and ‘no-go’ gauges that embodied the limits of tolerances accepted.

1952 Tappi: Techn. Sect. 35 255/1 Production samples of the coated paper were then evaluated as follows... If defective, a red point was placed on the ‘No Go’ line [of a control chart].

1956 (title) Project ‘Nogo Joe’. A study relating to airman morale at Chanute. (U.S.A.F.)

1961 Flight 80 542/1 A self-checking capability was therefore built into the machine so that, whenever a ‘No Go’ condition occurred, this part..carried out a self-checking routine to ensure that the fault was in the aircraft and not in the tester.

1969 Guardian 14 June 7/3 The astronauts would have had to end the mission there for, in space jargon, this was potentially a ‘no-go’ situation.

1969 Guardian 14 Oct. 18/1 Some barricades appeared on the Catholic side of ‘No go’ land, but Falls Road was clear.

1971 Guardian 13 Nov. 1/6 For journalists and others, the Bogside and Creggan estates are ‘no-go’ areas, with the IRA in total effective control.

1972 Times 24 May 16/1 The UDA organized the Protestant ‘no go’ areas in Belfast last weekend.

1976 J. I. M. Stewart Young Pattullo vii. 141 Between Janet and myself there was developing a block, a no-go situation.

1986 K. Amis Old Devils i. 2 The right-hand side of his mouth was a no-go area.

1994 Esquire Aug. 79/2 A scorched no-go zone of charred structures..separates the ANC residents' homes and the..Zulu hostels.

1870 J. R. Lowell Among my Bks. (1873) 1st Ser. 150 They have..arrived at a happy positivism as to its structure, though at the risk of bringing it to a no-go.

1884 Western Daily Press 16 Apr. 7/2 The first ‘fly’ resulted in a ‘no go’.

1946 Ann. Computation Lab. Harvard Univ. 1 26 If..the calculator finds that all multiples of the divisor are greater than the dividend or the remainder under consideration, a zero or ‘no-go’ is entered in the quotient counter and a new comparison made one column to the right.

1993 T. McMillan Waiting to Exhale (1993) 100 ‘I can't stand that girl. She's whacked.’ ‘You mean she's on drugs?’ ‘No. It means she's a no go. Ill. As in ugly’.

1850 C. Dickens Let. 29 Mar. (1988) VI. 74 As to two comic articles..out of me, that's the intensest extreme of no goism.