To go without something or to decide not to do something, voluntarily sacrificing or avoiding it.
From Old English 'foregān,' combining 'fore-' (before) and 'gān' (to go). Originally it meant 'to go before,' but evolved to mean 'to go without' or 'to pass by.'
There's constant confusion between 'forego' (to do without) and 'forgo'—they're actually the same word with two spellings, but using 'forgo' has become so popular that language authorities now accept both. This is prescriptivism losing to actual usage, which happens constantly.
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