give
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: gĭv
ipa: /ɡɪv/
rhymes: -ɪv
Forms: form: gives
form: giving
form: gave
form: given
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: give
form: give
form: gave
form: give
form: givest
form: gave
form: gavest
form: gives
form: giveth
form: gave
form: give
form: gave
form: give
form: gave
form: give
form: -
form: giving
form: given
Etymology: Middle English given, from Old Norse gefa (“to give”), from Proto-Germanic *gebaną (“to give”). Displaced yive, from Middle English yiven, of the same origin.
Senses: examples: text: I gave him my coat.
text: I gave my coat to the beggar.
text: When they asked, I gave my coat.
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To transfer one's possession or holding of (something) to (someone).
antonyms: get
obtain
receive
take
examples: text: I'm going to give my wife a necklace for her birthday.
text: She gave a pair of shoes to her husband for their anniversary.
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To make a present or gift of.
examples: text: I gave him my word that I'd protect his children.
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To pledge.
examples: text: I gave them permission to miss tomorrow's class.
text: Please give me some more time.
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To provide (something) to (someone), to allow or afford.
examples: text: It gives me a lot of pleasure to be here tonight.
text: The fence gave me an electric shock.
text: My mother-in-law gives me nothing but grief.
text: it's giving me bad vibes — It's giving me old Hollywood (vibes)
text: "The outfit is giving me eighties fitness video vibes, but you wear it well."
ref: 2023 February 21, Lakita Wilson, Last Chance Dance, Penguin, →ISBN, page 81:
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To cause (a sensation or feeling) to exist in (the specified person, or the target, audience, etc).
examples: text: it's giving old Hollywood (vibes)
text: [subtitle:] It's giving Wednesday Addams at the salon...
ref: 2022 October 25, Medina Azaldin, ELLE Beauty Team, “30 Halloween Nail Art Trends To Get You In The Mood For Trick Or Treat”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
text: It's giving old Hollywood
ref: 2023 May 30, Sophie Williams, “Kylie Jenner is giving Marilyn Monroe vibes in her latest Instagram post”, in Cosmopolitan, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2023:
text: Your outfit is giving more romance than bloodshed. Are you currently in love?
ref: 2023 June 12, Wilson Wong, “Gov Ball Raves on in Pink, Amid Rain and Smoke”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 Jun 2023:
text: This outfit gives 'college girl that knows what she's doing' and even though I am the furthest from that, I'll take it.
ref: 2023 July 20, Rachel Krause, quoting Gabby Ragsdale, “4 Students On The Back-To-School Outfits They're Shopping Their Closets For”, in Refinery29, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2023:
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To give off (a certain vibe or appearance). (Compare giving.)
examples: text: I want to give you a kiss and a hug.
text: As mom gave us a long look, I gave a sigh and my sister gave a laugh.
text: I'd like to give the tire a kick.
text: I gave the boy a push on the swing.
text: She gave me a wink afterwards, so I knew she was joking.
text: Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway,[…].
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 68:
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To carry out (a physical interaction) with (something).
examples: text: Give me your hand.
text: On entering the house, he gave his coat to the doorman.
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To pass (something) into (someone's hand, etc.).
examples: text: My boyfriend gave me chlamydia.
text: He was convinced that it was his alcoholism that gave him cancer.
text: Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.
ref: a. 1700 (date written), William Temple, “Heads, Designed for an Essay on Conversation”, in Miscellanea. The Third Part. […], London: […] Jonathan Swift, […] Benjamin Tooke, […], published 1701, →OCLC, page 331:
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To cause (a disease or condition) in, or to transmit (a disease or condition) to.
examples: text: The doctors gave me morphine for the pain.
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To provide or administer (a medication)
examples: text: Playing for us tonight, I give you The Beatles!
text: Ladies and gentlemen of Rotary, I give you our president, Bill Robbins.
ref: 1975, I.W. Parrish, Sixty-Sixth Annual Convention of Rotary International, Rotary International, page 54:
text: "Ladies and gentlemen... I give you... 'The Beatles'!..." announced Ed Sullivan above the screaming fans.
ref: 2008 September 8, Stuart P. Coates, Norma Jeane's Wishes in Time: (A Four Part Adventure), iUniverse, →ISBN, page 30:
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To present someone to an audience.
examples: text: On this happy evening, I give you the bride and groom!
text: "I give you the bride: the new Baroness of Kilshane. May her life with her bold new baron be long and happy and fruitful." He lifted his cup. "To the bride!"
ref: 2001 July 1, Katherine Kurtz, King Kelson's Bride, Penguin, →ISBN, page 19:
text: CORTEZ (raising whiskey glass) I give you President Lyndon Johnson.
ONO: You can keep him.
(They all knock back the whiskey, slam down the glasses. SAM pours again.)
ref: 2008, Chris Dickerson, Deadline, Original Works Publishing, →ISBN, page 22:
text: "Sir Thomas," Malone said, "I give you Her Majesty, the Queen!"
"To the Queen!" Boyd echoed. They downed their drinks and turned, as one man, to hurl the glasses into the wastebasket.
ref: 2014 June 13, Gordon Randall Garrett, Supermind, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:
glosses: To move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere.
To propose someone for a toast, used in standard formulations for toasts.
examples: text: They're giving my favorite show!
text: We hope that the need to "give good e-mail" in response to questions from clients and potential clients will in fact induce firms to get serious about storing and reusing their expertise – and even become open to tailoring […]
ref: 1993, Business Law Today:
text: […]who did not have a culture in which 'giving good presentation' and successfully playing the internal political game was the way up.
ref: 2003, Iain Aitken, Value-Driven IT Management: Commercializing the IT Function, page 153:
text: A friendly voice on the phone welcoming prospective new clients is a must. Don't underestimate the importance of giving good "phone".
ref: 2006, Christopher Matthew Spencer, The Ebay Entrepreneur, page 248:
text: Social skills are required to meet new people in a chat room and maintain contact over time (“Do you give good e-mail?”). The Internet provides people with an opportunity to reinvent or misrepresent themselves.
ref: 2012 January 1, George Zinkan, Advertising Research: The Internet, Consumer Behavior, and Strategy, Marketing Classics Press, →ISBN, page 28:
text: He gives good face too, posing for the camera with hands on waist, eyes forward, legs crossed (Fig. 4.1).
ref: 2016 November 25, Gabrielle Jamela Hosein, Lisa Outar, Indo-Caribbean Feminist Thought: Genealogies, Theories, Enactments, Springer, →ISBN, page 54:
glosses: To provide, as, a service or a broadcast.
examples: text: I give it ten minutes before he gives up.
text: I'd give it a 95% chance of success.
text: I'll give their marriage six months.
glosses: To estimate or predict (a duration or probability) for (something).
examples: text: One pillar gave, then more, and suddenly the whole floor pancaked onto the floor below.
text: A soldier noticed how earth "gave" as he walked over the shallow trenches.
ref: 1992, Garry Wills, “prologue”, in Lincoln at Gettysburg, page 21:
synonyms: give way
bend
cede
flex
move
yield
antonyms: resist
glosses: To yield or collapse under pressure or force.
examples: text: The master bedroom gives onto a spacious balcony.
text: Beyond the stile stands an attractive row of riverside trees – alder, hazel, beech, hawthorn and ash. Go across to the far corner of a field, where a through-stile gives onto a small, lightly wooded hill,[…]
ref: 2022 February 3, Terry Marsh, Walking the Dales Way: Ilkley to Bowness-on-Windermere through the Yorkshire Dales, Cicerone Press Limited, →ISBN:
glosses: To lead (onto or into).
examples: text: His window gave the park.
text: Columbus dwellers of Woodland Meadow Apts may not find themselves in a perfectly bucolic setting, as the residential complex gives onto a military defense logistics ground.
ref: 2006, Pierre Lagayette, Nature et progrès: interactions, exclusions, mutations, Presses Paris Sorbonne, →ISBN, page 61:
glosses: To provide a view of.
examples: text: The number of men, divided by the number of ships, gives four hundred to each ship.
glosses: To exhibit as a product or result; to produce; to yield.
examples: text: But there the duke was given to understand / That in a gondola were seen together / Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica.
ref: c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene viii], page 171:
glosses: To cause; to make; used with the infinitive.
examples: text: "Can do" gives me a choice, while "should do" gives me a complex.
ref: 1997, Jim Smoke, How a Man Measures Success, page 82:
glosses: To cause (someone) to have; produce in (someone); effectuate.
examples: text: He can be bad-tempered, I'll give you that, but he's a hard worker.
text: I give not heaven for lost.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
synonyms: allow
concede
grant
glosses: To allow or admit by way of supposition; to concede.
examples: text: I don't wonder at people giving him to me for a lover.
ref: 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, page 6:
glosses: To attribute; to assign; to adjudge.
examples: text: The umpire finally gave his decision: the ball was out.
glosses: To communicate or announce (advice, tidings, etc.); to pronounce or utter (an opinion, a judgment, a shout, etc.).
examples: text: These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 12:1:
text: once again
'Tis given me to behold my friend.
ref: 1700, Nicholas Rowe, The Ambitious Stepmother, page 13:
text: Then give thy friend to shed the sacred wine.
ref: 1725, Homer, “Book III”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume I, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC:
topics: lifestyle
religion
glosses: To grant power, permission, destiny, etc. (especially to a person); to allot; to allow.
examples: text: The soldiers give themselves to plunder.
text: That boy is given to fits of bad temper.
glosses: To devote or apply (oneself).
examples: text: Some moyst weather hath‥caused the powder to give and danke.
ref: 1590, John Smyth, A Discourse […] concerning […] weapons:
glosses: To become soft or moist.
examples: text: Whose eyes do never give / But through lust and laughter.
ref: c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 94:
glosses: To shed tears; to weep.
examples: text: My mind gives ye're reserv'd / To rob poor market women.
ref: c. 1608-1634, John Webster, Appius and Virginia, page 16
glosses: To have a misgiving.
Synonyms: word: accord
word: add
word: assign
word: award
word: bestow
word: bequeath
word: confer
word: contribute
word: deliver
word: do
word: donate
word: furnish
word: give
word: give away
word: grant
word: hand
word: hand in
word: hand over
word: make over
word: minister
word: pass
word: present
word: provide
word: render
word: supply
word: turn in
word: turn over
Hypernyms: word: transfer
Hyponyms: word: allow
word: afford
word: bribe
word: communicate
word: consign
word: distribute
word: endow
word: entrust
word: help
word: impart
word: lavish
word: lend
word: offer
word: pay
word: return
word: sacrifice
word: spare
word: spend
word: tip
word: vest
word: leave
word: devise
word: cede
word: yield
word: part with
word: shed
Derived terms: begive
don't give me that
don't give up the day job
don't give up your day job
foregive
fore-give
forgive
forthgive
gavel
givable
give 110%
give a bad name
give about
give a bugger
give a crap
give a damn
give a darn
give a dog a bad name and hang him
give a fig
give a flying fuck
give a flying shit
give a fuck
give against
give a goddamn
give a good account of oneself
give a good damn
give a good goddamn
give a gun
give a hang
give a hoot
give a hundred percent
give a knee
give ale
give a light
give a loose
give a man a fish
give a man a fish and you feed him for a day
teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime
give a monkey's
give-and-go
give-and-take
give and take
give an eye-tooth
give an inch
give a rats
give a rat's arse
give a rat's ass
give a rip
give as good as one gets
give a shit
give a shite
give a sneck posset
give a stuff
give a tinker's cuss
give a tinker's damn
give a tin shit
give a toss
give away
give-away
give-away shop
give away the farm
give away the store
give back
give battle
give birth
give blood
give brain
give by
give chance to
give chase
give credit
give credit where credit is due
give cry
give curry
give dap
give dome
givee
give ear
give face
give forth
give gray hair to
give grey hair to
give ground
give hat
give head
give heed
give in
give into
give it a break
give it a rest
give it large
give it mouth
give it one's all
give it one's best shot
give it socks
give it some welly
give it the gun
give it to someone
give it up
give it up for
give lie to
give life to
give lip
give me
give me strength
given
give name to
give neck
giveness
give notice
give off
give of oneself
give one a yell
give one enough rope
give one's all
give one's best
give one's daughter away
give oneself airs
give one's eye-teeth
give one's head a shake
give one's left nut
give one's notice
give one's right arm
give one's word
give one the lie in one's throat
give on to
give or take
give out
give out stink
give over
give pause
give paw
give place
give pursuit
give rise to
give somebody time
give someone a bell
give someone a bloody nose
give someone a break
give someone a buzz
give someone a chance
give someone a hand
give someone a hard time
give someone a jingle
give someone a kiss
give someone a lift
give someone an earful
give someone an inch and someone will take a mile
give someone a piece of one's mind
give someone a ring
give someone a shout
give someone a speaking to
give someone ass cancer
give someone beans
give someone butt cancer
give someone enough rope
give someone enough rope and they'll hang themself
give someone five
give someone goss
give someone gray hair
give someone grey hair
give someone grief
give someone Hail Columbia
give someone hell
give someone his cards
give someone his gruel
give someone his hat
give someone his head
give someone his head on a plate
give someone his head on a platter
give someone Jesse
give someone Jessie
give someone line
give someone one
give someone something to think about
give someone the air
give someone the arm
give someone the bag
give someone the boot
give someone the brush-off
give someone the business
give someone the chair
give someone the cold shoulder
give someone the creeps
give someone the eye
give someone the gears
give someone the heave-ho
give someone their cards
give someone their flowers
give someone the lie in their throat
give someone the mitten
give someone the old heave-ho
give someone the runaround
give someone the shits
give someone the slip
give someone the time
give someone the time of day
give someone time
give someone to understand
give someone what for
give someone what-for
give someone wood
give some skin
give something a go
give something a miss
give something a shot
give something a try
give something a whirl
give something up as a bad job
give stick
give suck
give thanks
give the axe
give the bird
give the devil his due
give the dirts
give the elbow
give the finger
give the floor
give the game away
give the go-by
give the lie
give the lie to
give them an inch and they'll take a mile
give them an inch and they'll take an ell
give the mitten to
give the royal treatment
give the sack
give the stem
give the store away
give the time of day
give the word
give thought
give toco
give tongue
give to understand
give two fucks
give two hoots
give two shits
give two squirts
give two squirts of piss
give up
give up the ghost
give vent to
give voice
give way
give way sign
give weight
give what for
give with one hand and take away with the other
givey
give your head a wobble
give zero fucks
God doesn't give with both hands
it is better to give than to receive
misgive
not give much for someone's chances
outgive
overgive
refer someone to the reply given in Arkell v Pressdram
regive
something's got to give
stand up and give it to him
thanksgive
ungive
upgive
what gives?
would give a Jew's eye
you only get what you give
Related terms: word: bestowal
word: giver