Word.ws English Dictionary

give chase

give chase verb: to begin chasing or pursuing someone or something, whether on foot or by vehicle.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To begin chasing or pursuing someone or something, whether on foot or by vehicle.
    • After the robbery, the police gave chase but didn't catch the suspect.
    • Without thinking, Zoe ran along the outside of the building, as her stepmother and Tina fought to be first out on to the scaffold to give chase.2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    give pursuit

Synonyms of give chase

Forms of give chase

third-person singular presentgives chase
present participlegiving chase
pastgave chase
past participlegiven chase

Questions about give chase

What does give chase mean?
Give chase means to begin chasing or pursuing someone or something, whether on foot or by vehicle.
What part of speech is give chase?
Give chase is a verb.
What is the past tense of give chase?
The past tense of give chase is gave chase.

Words near give chase in the dictionary

  1. give birth
  2. give blood
  3. give brain
  4. give by
  5. give chance to
  6. give chase
  7. give credit
  8. give credit where credit is due
  9. give cry
  10. give curry
  11. give dap

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give chase (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-give chase.ogg.

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