give up

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English

Verb

give up (third-person singular simple present gives up, present participle giving up, simple past gave up, past participle given up)

  1. (transitive) To surrender (someone or something)
    Synonyms: surrender, yield
    He was surrounded, so gave himself up.
    They gave him up to the police.
  2. (transitive) To stop or quit (an activity, etc.)
    Synonyms: blin, cease, discontinue
    They gave up the search when it got dark.
  3. (transitive) To relinquish (something)
    Synonyms: forlend, surrender, yield
    Coordinate term: give away
    He gave up his seat to an old man.
    • 1816, Jane Austen, chapter 7, in Emma, volume 1:
      "Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing in the world."
  4. (transitive) To lose hope concerning (someone or something)
    They gave him up for dead.
  5. (transitive) To abandon (someone or something)
    Synonyms: desert, forlet, forsake
    I gave up my faith years ago.
    • 1941 October, “Notes and News: Great Western Parcels Railcar”, in Railway Magazine, page 474:
      The semi-streamlined contour of the earlier G.W.R. railcars has been given up in favour of a more utilitarian blunt-nose end, and effective floor space gained thereby.
    • 1987, Stock Aitken Waterman (lyrics and music), “Never Gonna Give You Up”, in Whenever You Need Somebody, performed by Rick Astley:
      Never gonna give you up / Never gonna let you down / Never gonna run around and desert you
    • 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 7:
      The optimistic peace-and-love philosophy of his youth having given him up, he no longer knew how to reconcile himself to an increasingly phoney (he loathed, in this context, the otherwise excellent word “virtual”) reality.
    • 2021 November 3, Adrian Shooter talks to Paul Clifton, “A lifetime of railway achievements”, in RAIL, number 943, page 34:
      "I tried retirement ten years ago. Didn't think much of it. Complete waste of time. So I gave it up after two weeks."
  6. (intransitive) To admit defeat, capitulate.
    Synonyms: capitulate, give in, surrender, wave the white flag
    Coordinate terms: give out, give way
    OK, I give up, you win.
  7. (transitive, baseball) Of a pitcher: to allow a hitter to make (a certain play).
    A good pitcher will give up very few home runs.
    • 2019 November 14, Tyler Kepner, “After Reports of Astros’ Cheating, M.L.B. Is Left to Restore Trust”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-01-15:
      Fiers, who now pitches for the Oakland Athletics, has gone 27-12 with a no-hitter in two years since leaving the Astros. But the last time he faced them, on Sept. 9, he gave up nine runs, including five homers, and got just three outs.
  8. (transitive, finance) To execute a trade on behalf of another broker.
  9. (intransitive, US dialectal) To acknowledge, recognize as.
    • 1969, God Struck Me Dead; Religious Conversion Experiences and Autobiographies of Ex-Slaves, Philadelphia, P.A., Boston, M.A.: Pilgrim Press, page 45:
      The next morning, Sunday, I was boxing with R., who had come over with three or four others to swap a few with me. I was given up to be the best boxer around, and I laid them cold as fast as they came at me.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

give up (comparative more give up, superlative most give up)

  1. (US dialectal) Become fully taken over by a certain quality, activity, trait, etc.
    • c. 1808, Mary Woody, A true account of Nayomy Wise‎:
      And now She Seems give up to Sin / Too much neglecting grace within

References

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