Word.ws English Dictionary

cried uncle

cried uncle is the simple past and past participle of cry uncle.

Meaning of cry uncle

Verb

cry uncle (third-person singular simple present cries uncle, present participle crying uncle, simple past and past participle cried uncle)

  1. (US, colloquial) To beg for mercy; to give up, admit defeat, surrender; indicate submission, such as when wrestling.
    • The Powels would serve strong punch and play loud music, and their parties ended when the last guest cried uncle, often a day and half after they began.1976, Geoffrey Wolff, Black Sun, New York Review of Books, published 2003, page 158

Questions about cried uncle

What is cried uncle the simple past and past participle of?
Cried uncle is the simple past and past participle of cry uncle.

Words near cried uncle in the dictionary

  1. cried over spilt milk
  2. cried poormouth
  3. cried someone a river
  4. cried stinking fish
  5. cried the blues
  6. cried uncle
  7. cried up
  8. cried wolf
  9. criedst
  10. Crieff
  11. crier

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cried uncle (page history and authors); cry uncle (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.

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