Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To make a present of.
  • intransitive verb To place in the hands of; pass.
  • intransitive verb To deliver in exchange or recompense; pay.
  • intransitive verb To let go for a price; sell.
  • intransitive verb To administer.
  • intransitive verb To convey by a physical action.
  • intransitive verb To inflict as punishment.
  • intransitive verb To bestow, especially officially; confer.
  • intransitive verb To accord or tender to another.
  • intransitive verb To put temporarily at the disposal of.
  • intransitive verb To entrust to another, usually for a specified reason.
  • intransitive verb To communicate, convey, or offer for conveyance.
  • intransitive verb To endure the loss of; sacrifice.
  • intransitive verb To devote or apply completely.
  • intransitive verb To furnish or contribute.
  • intransitive verb To offer in good faith; pledge.
  • intransitive verb To allot as a portion or share.
  • intransitive verb To bestow (a name, for example).
  • intransitive verb To attribute (blame, for example) to someone; assign.
  • intransitive verb To award as due.
  • intransitive verb To emit or utter.
  • intransitive verb To submit for consideration, acceptance, or use.
  • intransitive verb To proffer to another.
  • intransitive verb To consent to engage (oneself) in sexual intercourse with a man.
  • intransitive verb To perform for an audience.
  • intransitive verb To present to view.
  • intransitive verb To offer as entertainment.
  • intransitive verb To propose as a toast.
  • intransitive verb To be a source of; afford.
  • intransitive verb To cause to catch or be subject to (a disease or bodily condition).
  • intransitive verb To guide or direct, as by persuasion or behavior. Used with an infinitive phrase.
  • intransitive verb To yield or produce.
  • intransitive verb To bring forth or bear.
  • intransitive verb To produce as a result of calculation.
  • intransitive verb To manifest or show.
  • intransitive verb To carry out (a physical movement).
  • intransitive verb To permit one to have or take.
  • intransitive verb To take an interest to the extent of.
  • intransitive verb To make gifts or donations.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English given, from Old English giefan and Old Norse gefa; see ghabh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English given, from Old Norse gefa ("to give"), from Proto-Germanic *gebanan (“to give”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰab(ʰ)- (“to take, hold, have”). Displaced or merged with native Middle English yiven, ȝeven, from Old English ġiefan, from the same Proto-Germanic source (cf. the inherited now obsolete English doublet yive). Cognate with Scots gie ("to give"), Danish give ("to give"), Swedish giva, ge ("to give"), Icelandic gefa ("to give"), North Frisian jiw, jiiw, jeewe ("to give"), West Frisian jaan ("to give"), Dutch geven ("to give"), German geben ("to give"), Latin habeō ("have, hold"), Old Irish gaibim ("I hold"), Albanian jep ("to give, allow, lend"), Lithuanian gabenti ("to carry, transport"), Polish chapać ("to grab, snatch"), Sanskrit  (gabhasti, "hand").

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Examples

  • Putting the animal out to grass for a couple of months will generally renovate the constitution and remove the tendency to hove; and after being taken up from grass, with a man in charge who knows what to give and _what not to give_, the animal may go on for a few months longer, and with great attention may at last prove a winner.

    Cattle and Cattle-breeders William M'Combie

  • For not only do all the radioactive substances give off particles of helium gas positively electrified, but _all bodies, no matter what their composition_, can by suitable treatment, such as exposing them to ultra-violet light, or raising them to incandescence, be made to _give off electrons_ or negatively charged particles, and _these electrons are always the same no matter from what kind of substance they come_.

    Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation George McCready Price

  • As I feel exonerated from the last charge, and being in a certain degree called on to give my evidence relative to 21st February last; and as the rank I hold in society will _give weight_ to my _testimony, with the witnesses_ I shall bring forward on the occasion, I feel justified in the steps I am about to take, nor can your

    The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, commonly called Lord Cochrane, the Hon. Andrew Cochrane Johnstone, Richard Gathorne Butt, Ralph Sandom, Alexander M'Rae, John Peter Holloway, and Henry Lyte for A Conspiracy In the Court of King's Bench, Guildhall, on Wednesday the 8th, and Thursday the 9th of June, 1814 William Brodie Gurney

  • You give me the impression -- I do not say you mean it, I say you _give_ it -- of suddenly and without due cause or just im -- just opportunity, trying to _bounce_ me into taking you into partnership.

    If Winter Comes 1925

  • QUOTATION: To one that promised to give him hardy cocks that would die fighting, “Prithee, ” said Cleomenes, “give me cocks that will kill fighting.

    Quotations Plutarch. A.D. 46?-A.D. c. 120. 1919

  • He now sent a letter, offering to give Halonnesus to Athens, but not to _give it back_ (since this would concede their right to it); or else to submit the dispute to arbitration.

    The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 384 BC-322 BC Demosthenes 1912

  • Yet if those to whom it is, or might be, would take it, -- if those who might give it, in many forms, _would give_, -- who knows what relief and loosening would come to others in the hard jostle and press?

    The Other Girls 1865

  • I give you back your faith -- I _give_ you back your promises -- you have _taken_ back your heart.

    Tales and Novels — Volume 08 Maria Edgeworth 1808

  • No one living has any claim upon me: I can leave or give my own just as I please; and you and yours are, of course, my first objects -- and for the how, and the what, and the when, I must consult you; and only beg you to keep it in mind, that I would as soon _give_ as

    Tales and Novels — Volume 05 Maria Edgeworth 1808

  • _ Speech of Autolycus: — “Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie; but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; — therefore they do not _give_ us the lie.”

    Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803

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