GOING - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

GOINGAuthored

The Law Mind • 1087 words

Definition

In law, "going" functions primarily as a modifier or component of compound terms rather than as a standalone legal concept. Its legal significance derives almost entirely from context. Three principal uses appear in legal sources:

Going concern. A business — typically a corporation or commercial enterprise — that is actively operating and transacting its ordinary affairs, regardless of whether it is solvent. The "going concern" designation affects how assets are valued (as productive parts of a functioning enterprise rather than as liquidation inventory), how courts assess damages, and how bankruptcy and reorganization proceedings are framed. A business may be a going concern even while insolvent, provided it continues to function in the ordinary course.

Going before the wind. A navigational and admiralty term describing a vessel whose wind comes from astern — that is, from behind — such that the wind is "free" with respect to the vessel's course. The designation affects right-of-way rules and duties of navigation under maritime law.

Going of sheep (historical). In older English real property and agricultural law, the "going" of sheep in a particular locale referred to the right or practice of pasture-feeding sheep on designated land. The term was a term of art in local custom, not a general property concept.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Departure; the suitability of ground for riding or walking; progress; conditions for advancing; course of life or behavior.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of moving in any manner; traveling; departure; pregnancy or gestation; course of life; behavior; doings.

Editorial note: The common meanings of "going" — movement, departure, terrain conditions — carry into legal usage only in compound forms, and even there the legal meaning is technical. A researcher encountering "going" in a legal document should resist the ordinary sense and ask immediately which compound concept is intended. "Going concern" in particular has a precise valuation meaning that bears no relationship to the ordinary sense of movement or progress.

Common Confusion

Going concern vs. solvent enterprise: A going concern is not necessarily a financially healthy business. Courts and accountants distinguish between the going-concern valuation standard (what the business is worth as an operating entity) and solvency. An insolvent company can be a going concern; a solvent one can fail the going-concern test if operations have effectively ceased. Historical sources sometimes conflate the two, and earlier dictionary entries reinforce the confusion by emphasizing active operation without addressing the solvency distinction.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Going concern: The dominant legal usage. Appears in corporate law, bankruptcy, tax, and accounting contexts. Going-concern value is the premium assigned to assets when assessed as part of a functioning enterprise rather than in isolation or liquidation.

Going before the wind: Admiralty and navigation law. Governs vessel right-of-way and collision-avoidance duties under maritime rules.

Going of sheep: Historical English agricultural and property law. A local customary term, effectively obsolete in modern practice.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus will almost never encounter "going" as a freestanding legal term. The research challenge is recognizing which compound concept is at work and avoiding anachronistic readings.

For going concern: The term's legal significance has grown substantially over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, largely driven by corporate law and bankruptcy doctrine. Historical dictionary entries — including Anderson's — treat it briefly and without the valuation dimension that dominates modern usage. A researcher reading nineteenth-century insolvency materials should not assume "going concern" there carries the same technical weight it carries in modern bankruptcy reorganization proceedings.

For historical sources: Bouvier's entry on the "going of sheep" is a reminder that regional and customary uses of "going" appear in older English land and agricultural records. Researchers in early English property law or local custom records may encounter this usage without any cross-reference to the more familiar compound terms.

For navigation law: "Going before the wind" appears in admiralty sources and navigation rule treatises. It is definitional in vessel right-of-way analysis. Researchers should be aware that the rules governing sailing vessels and steam vessels diverged historically, and that "before the wind" status had different implications depending on vessel type and era.

Corpus connection: Because "going" triggers multiple compound concepts across very different fields — corporate, admiralty, property — corpus searches using this term alone will produce mixed results. Field-specific searches combining "going" with "concern," "wind," or property-law keywords will yield more useful results.

Historical Dictionary Support

Anderson's is the most practically informative of the three historical sources, though its entry is brief. It correctly identifies "going concern" as applying to a corporation that continues operating despite possible insolvency — a distinction that matters. It adds a cross-reference to "crop" and "rate," suggesting that Anderson treats "going" primarily as a modifier directing the reader to fuller treatment elsewhere.

Bouvier's entry is notable for its narrowness: the only substantive definition offered is the customary agricultural meaning of the "going of sheep" in Norfolk, supported by a reported English case. This reflects Bouvier's strong orientation toward English property and common law sources. Modern researchers should treat this entry as historically illustrative rather than operationally useful.

Black's (2nd ed.) offers the most structural insight, noting that in compound phrases "going" implies motion, progress, active operation, or present and continuous validity and efficacy. Black's then elaborates on "going before the wind" in admiralty terms. This framing — that "going" in legal compounds signals active, present, continuous operation — is the most useful general principle across all three historical sources.

What the historical sources miss collectively: None of the three provides substantive treatment of going-concern valuation as a legal or accounting standard. This gap is significant for researchers working in modern corporate, bankruptcy, or tax law, where going-concern value is a formal term of art with doctrinal weight. Researchers should supplement historical dictionary sources with twentieth-century treatise and statutory materials for this application.

Jurisdictional Note

Going-concern doctrine is applied across U.S. federal bankruptcy law and state corporate law but with varying emphasis. In admiralty, "going before the wind" is governed by federal and international navigation rules, making it effectively uniform within U.S. admiralty jurisdiction. The agricultural "going of sheep" usage is specific to older English law and has no meaningful analog in American jurisdictions.

GOINGmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

See CROP; GO; RATE, 1. Going concern. A corporation which, 7. To surrender voluntarily to an officer of although it may be insolvent, still continues the law: as, to give one's self up.

GOINGmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

The "going" of sheep in Barnham in Norfolk meant that the sheep should be pasture fed. 3 B. & Ad. Rep. 543.

GOINGmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

In various compound phrases (as those which follow) this term implies either motion, progress, active operation, or present and continuous validity and efficacy. —Going before the wind. In the language of mariners and in the rules of navigation, a vesse] is said to be going “before the wind” when the wind is free as respects her course, that is, comes from behind the vessel or over the stern, so that her yards may be braced uare across. She is said to “going off large” when she has the wind free on either tack, that is, when it blows from. some point abaft the beam or from the quarter. Hall v. The. Buffalo, 11 Fed. Cas. 216; Ward v. The Fashion, 29 Fed. Cas. 188:-—Going concern. A firm or corporation which, though embarrassed or even insolvent, continues to transact its ordinary business. White, etc., Mfg. Co. v. Pettes Imrting Co. (C. C.) 30 Fed. 865; Corey v. adsworth, 99 Ala. 68, 11 South. 350, 23 L. R. A. 618, 42 Am. St. Rep. 55.—Going off e. See “GOING BEFORE THE WIND,” #upra.—Going price. The prevalent price: the current market value of the article in question at the time and place of sale. Kelsea v. Haines, 41 N. H. —Going throurh the bar, The act of the chief of an, English commonlaw court in demanding of every. member of the bar, in order of seniority, if he has anything to move. This was done at the sitting of the court each day in term, except special paper days, crown paper days in the queen’s bench, and revenue sparer days in the exchequer. On the last day of term this order js reversed, the first and second time round. In the exchequer the postman and tubman are first called on. Wharton.—Going to the country. When a party. under the commonlaw system of pleading. finished his pleading by the words “and of this he puts himself upon the country,” this was called “going to the country.” It was the essential termination to a pleading which took issue upon a_ material fact in the preceding pleading. Wharton.— Going value. As applied to the property or plant of a manufacturing or industrial corporation, a public-service corporation, etc., this

GOINGn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The act of moving in any manner; traveling; as, the going is bad. Departure. Milton. Pregnancy; gestation; childbearing. Crew. Course of life; behavior; doings; ways. His eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings. Job xxxiv. 21. Going barrel. (Horology) (a) A barrel containing the mainspring, and having teeth on its periphery to drive the train. (b) A device for maintaining a force to drive the train while the timepiece is being wound up.  -- Going forth. (Script.) (a) Outlet; way of exit. "Every going forth of the sanctuary." Ezek. xliv. 5. (b) A limit; a border. "The going forth thereof shall be from the south to Kadesh-barnea." Num. xxxiv. 4.  -- Going out, or Goings out. (Script.) (a) The utmost extremity or limit. "The border shall go down to Jordan, and the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea." Num. xxxiv. 12. (b) Departure or journeying. "And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys." Num. xxxiii. 2.  -- Goings on, behavior; actions; conduct; -- usually in a bad sense.

goingnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A departure. | The suitability of ground for riding, walking etc. | Progress. | Conditions for advancing in any way. | Course of life; behaviour; doings; ways. | The whereabouts (of something). | The horizontal distance between the front of one step in a flight of stairs and the front of the next.

Goingname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A surname.

goingverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

present participle and gerund of go | Attending or visiting (a stated event, place, etc.) habitually or regularly.

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