"Go through" is a phrasal verb that means, in the broadest sense, to move from one side of something to the other. But that plain definition hides a problem. In everyday English, the phrase rarely means literal movement. We use it to talk about suffering, reviewing, spending, surviving, rehearsing, and getting approved. Each of those is a different idea wearing the same two words. So when a student or a writer reaches for a synonym, the honest answer to "what is a synonym for go through?" is a question in return: which "go through" do you mean?
This matters more than it looks. A thesaurus will happily offer you "endure," "examine," "exhaust," and "traverse" in the same list, as if they were interchangeable. They are not. Swap the wrong one in and a sentence about reviewing a contract suddenly sounds like a sentence about surviving a tragedy. Good word choice is not about finding a fancier word. It is about finding the word that carries the exact meaning you already had in mind.
The trouble with one phrase doing seven jobs
Phrasal verbs are the chameleons of English. They are built from a common verb plus a preposition or particle, and that small particle bends the meaning in ways a learner cannot predict from the parts. "Go" plus "through" should, logically, describe passage. Instead it has drifted across the language into half a dozen unrelated senses, held together by nothing more than habit.
Here is the practical consequence. When you see "go through" in a sentence, the meaning lives in the context, not in the phrase. "She went through a difficult divorce" and "She went through the divorce paperwork" share four identical words and share almost no meaning. The first is about emotional experience. The second is about reading documents. A synonym that fits one will look absurd in the other.
So the first skill is not vocabulary. It is reading. Before you replace "go through," name the sense. Once you can say "this means to endure" or "this means to examine," the right synonym becomes obvious instead of guessed.
The main senses, and the words that fit each
Think of "go through" as a folder holding several distinct meanings. Here are the ones that come up most, each with synonyms that genuinely match.
To experience or endure something difficult. This is the emotional sense: going through grief, illness, a hard year. Fitting synonyms are endure, undergo, suffer, weather, live through, and come through. Note the shades among them. Endure and suffer emphasize the pain. Weather and come through emphasize survival, the fact that you made it to the other side. "She weathered a hard year" feels hopeful. "She suffered through a hard year" does not.
To examine or review carefully. This is the desk-work sense: going through your notes, the budget, the applications. Fitting synonyms are examine, review, inspect, scrutinize, comb through, sift through, and pore over. Again the shades differ. Scrutinize implies suspicion or high stakes. Comb through and sift through imply looking for one thing among many. Pore over implies slow, absorbed attention. A teacher might review a stack of essays, but pore over a single brilliant one.
To use up or consume. This is the depletion sense: a toddler who goes through a box of crayons in a week, a household that goes through a gallon of milk every two days. Fitting synonyms are use up, consume, exhaust, deplete, burn through, and get through. Burn through adds a note of speed and waste. Deplete sounds clinical, fit for a report on resources rather than crayons.
To pass through a physical space. This is the literal sense, the one closest to the dictionary: going through a tunnel, a doorway, customs. Fitting synonyms are pass through, traverse, cross, move through, and navigate. Traverse is formal and suits long or difficult passage. Navigate suggests care, steering past obstacles, and works for both real corridors and figurative ones.
To be approved or completed. This is the transactional sense: the deal went through, the payment went through, the bill went through committee. Fitting synonyms are be approved, be finalized, clear, be processed, and succeed. "The payment cleared" is the natural phrasing a bank would use. "The deal was finalized" belongs in a contract summary.
To rehearse or practice in sequence. This is the run-it-again sense: going through your lines, the steps, the plan one more time. Fitting synonyms are rehearse, run through, practice, walk through, and review. Walk through is gentle and instructional, the word a trainer uses with a beginner. Run through is quicker, a final check before the real thing.
To search through belongings. This is the rummaging sense, sometimes intrusive: someone went through my bag, my drawers, my phone. Fitting synonyms are search, rummage through, rifle through, and dig through. Rifle through carries a hint of haste or violation. Dig through sounds more like an honest, messy hunt for your keys.
Examples, side by side
The point lands fastest when you watch one weak revision and one strong one.
Original: "The committee went through every application before the deadline."
Weak swap: "The committee endured every application before the deadline." This is wrong, and comically so. Endure belongs to the suffering sense, not the reviewing sense. The committee read applications. It did not survive them.
Strong swap: "The committee reviewed every application before the deadline." Or, if the work was painstaking, "combed through every application." Both fit the actual meaning.
Original: "He went through a lot after losing his job."
Weak swap: "He examined a lot after losing his job." Nonsense. Examine is the desk-work word, and this sentence is about hardship.
Strong swap: "He endured a lot" or "He weathered a lot after losing his job." The second is kinder, suggesting he came out the other side.
The lesson repeats: the original phrase was never the problem. The mismatch between the swapped word and the intended sense is the problem.
Common misconceptions
"Synonyms are interchangeable." They almost never are. Dictionaries list words that overlap in one sense, not words that mean the same thing in every sense. Two words can be synonyms in one sentence and opposites in feeling in the next. Treat a synonym list as a menu of candidates to test, not a set of equal substitutes.
"A longer or rarer word is a better word." Replacing "go through" with "traverse" or "scrutinize" can make writing worse, not better, if the plain phrase already fit. Precision beats prestige. "She went through chemotherapy" is clear and human. "She traversed chemotherapy" is a small disaster. Reach for the formal word only when the register and meaning both call for it.
"Connotation is a detail you can ignore." Connotation is the feeling a word carries beyond its dictionary meaning, and it is often the whole point. Weather, endure, and suffer describe the same event but tell the reader how to feel about it. Choosing among them is not decoration. It is meaning.
"A thesaurus or a rewrite tool decides for you." It does not. These tools surface options. They do not know which sense you meant or what tone you want. The judgment stays with the writer, which is exactly why thoughtful word choice still signals real understanding, in a student essay or anywhere else.
A quick method you can reuse
When you want to replace "go through," or any phrasal verb, run three quick checks. First, name the sense in plain words: am I talking about enduring, examining, using up, passing, approving, rehearsing, or searching? Second, pick a synonym from that sense only, never from the general pile. Third, read the new sentence aloud and ask whether the feeling still matches. If "weathered" sounds too hopeful or "scrutinized" sounds too suspicious, adjust. The sentence will tell you.
"Go through" is a useful phrase precisely because it is flexible. But flexibility is the enemy of precision, and good writing lives on precision. The best synonym is never the most impressive one. It is the one that says exactly what you already meant.