go to seed | Idiomator

Meaning: (of a plant)To pass fromfloweringorripeningto the formation ofseeds.1911,Jack London,Adventure:Wild tomatoes, which hadgone to seedor been remorselessly hoed out from the beginning of Berande, were foraged for salads, soups, and sauces.; (figuratively,by extension)Todeteriorate; todeclineinto anunkemptordebasedcondition.1898, Eliot Gregory,Worldly Ways and Byways:But the "frump" will let herself and all her surroundingsgo to seed, not from humbleness of mind or an overwhelming sense of her own unworthiness, but in pure complacent conceit.1919,Jerome K. Jerome,All Roads Lead to Calvary:But suppose I hang about till eighty and die a childish old gentleman with a mind allgone to seed.2021August 19, 27:45 from the start, inNewsHour(television production), Peter Meijer (actor),Public Broadcasting System:[…]if this total Taliban takeover and collapse was one of the contingencies that[…]President [Joe] Biden had foreseen, then how come this plan[…]went to seedso rapidly?2023May 28, Janan Ganesh, “Right on the money”, inFT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 2:I found that slick and graceful enough at 25. Now, with marriagesgoing to seedall around me, it is the insight, the penetration, that makes me smile/wince.

Examples:

EN: "Why, jim would say it's a sacrilegious crime to let that lettuce lay there and go to seed,"
ES: Y creería un sacrilegio dejarla germinar sin más, así que...
EN: The fellow who owns the place has been kind of letting it go to seed, but we can make something of it.
ES: El dueño Io ha abandonado un poco.
EN: You wouldn't want to watch him go to seed around here, would you?
ES: ¿No querrá ver como se echa a perder aquí?
EN: -Don't let her stay here and go to seed.
ES: - No dejen que se quede y siembre semillas.
EN: I won't let everything go to seed just because I don't own the place anymore.
ES: No dejaré que todo se eche a perder sólo porque ya no sea mi casa.
EN: - To let yourself go to seed?
ES: Te quedas en casa pudriéndote.
EN: How can you allow yourself to go to seed like a fat duck?
ES: ¿Cómo puedes convertirte en semillas como los patos gordos?
EN: - Ducks don't go to seed, my dear sister.
ES: - Los patos no se hacen semillas.
EN: Well, I'd rather look at her than watch you go to seed.
ES: Prefiero ver eso que verte en decadencia.
EN: Let the others go to seed here.
ES: Deja que los demás se vayan a sembrar aquí.
EN: Charlie and me'll bring in the back 20, and we'll have to let the rest go to seed.
ES: Cosecharé ocho hectáreas con Charlie y el resto se perderá.
EN: My son, if you end this relationship... our whole family will go to seed!
ES: Mi hijo, si termines esta relación... ¡Nuestra entera familia arruinará!
EN: Don't let yourself go to seed.
ES: No te permitas deteriorarte.
EN: "lf this factory closes down, many families will go to seed"
ES: Si esta fábrica se cierra muchas familias irán a la ruina
EN: Then very quickly they all go to seed.
ES: Luego muy rapido todas ellas ya no sirven.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).