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
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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_ 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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But just as people “wish cycle” by chucking unrecyclables into the recycling, so do people “wish give”.
‘People sell their best stuff on Vinted’ – how charity shops became a dumping ground for unsellable clothes Fleur Britten 2026
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