Word.ws English Dictionary

crying uncle

crying uncle is the present participle and gerund 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 crying uncle

What is crying uncle the present participle and gerund of?
Crying uncle is the present participle and gerund of cry uncle.

Words near crying uncle in the dictionary

  1. crying shame
  2. crying shames
  3. crying someone a river
  4. crying stinking fish
  5. crying the blues
  6. crying uncle
  7. crying up
  8. crying wolf
  9. cryingly
  10. cryings
  11. crykonisine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crying 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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