Word.ws English Dictionary

gave the lie to

gave the lie to is the simple past of give the lie to.

Meaning of give the lie to

Verb

give the lie to (third-person singular simple present gives the lie to, present participle giving the lie to, simple past gave the lie to, past participle given the lie to)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To reveal or prove (something) to be false; to refute.
    • They found plenty of emails that gave the lie to his assertion that he didn't know about the incident.

Questions about gave the lie to

What is gave the lie to the simple past of?
Gave the lie to is the simple past of give the lie to.

Words near gave the lie to in the dictionary

  1. gave the elbow
  2. gave the finger
  3. gave the floor
  4. gave the game away
  5. gave the lie
  6. gave the lie to
  7. gave the royal treatment
  8. gave the sack
  9. gave the stem
  10. gave the time of day
  11. gave the word

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gave the lie to (page history and authors); give the lie to (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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Cite this entry: “gave the lie to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gave_the_lie_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.