Word.ws English Dictionary

chucks up the sponge

chucks up the sponge is the third-person singular simple present indicative of chuck up the sponge.

Meaning of chuck up the sponge

Verb

chuck up the sponge (third-person singular simple present chucks up the sponge, present participle chucking up the sponge, simple past and past participle chucked up the sponge)

  1. (dated) To quit; to give up; to admit defeat.
    • The fighting spirit of the German army is supplied by the officer and N. C. O. It has been proved that when a German soldier sees his bayonet his fighting value is finished — he "chucks up the sponge."1916, Pamphlets on the European War - Volume 26, page 10

Questions about chucks up the sponge

What is chucks up the sponge the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Chucks up the sponge is the third-person singular simple present indicative of chuck up the sponge.

Words near chucks up the sponge in the dictionary

  1. chucks one's toys out of the cot
  2. chucks out
  3. chucks over
  4. chucks the deuces
  5. chucks up
  6. chucks up the sponge
  7. Chuckster
  8. chuckstone
  9. chuckstones
  10. Chucktown
  11. chuckwaggon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chucks up the sponge (page history and authors); chuck up the sponge (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “chucks up the sponge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chucks_up_the_sponge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.