Word.ws English Dictionary

give someone something to think about

give someone something to think about verb: to threaten or provide a challenge to.

Verb

give someone something to think about (third-person singular simple present gives someone something to think about, present participle giving someone something to think about, simple past gave someone something to think about, past participle given someone something to think about)

  1. (idiomatic) To threaten or provide a challenge to.
    • Arsenal were untroubled elsewhere, Forest's risk-averse gameplan making it a relatively easy night for their defenders until Awoniyi emerged after being out with injury since October, finally giving them something to think about.2024 January 30, Phil McNulty, “Nottingham Forest 1-2 Arsenal: Gunners in title race after they close gap to leaders Liverpool”, in BBC Sport

Forms of give someone something to think about

third-person singular presentgives someone something to think about
present participlegiving someone something to think about
pastgave someone something to think about
past participlegiven someone something to think about

Questions about give someone something to think about

What does give someone something to think about mean?
Give someone something to think about means to threaten or provide a challenge to.
What part of speech is give someone something to think about?
Give someone something to think about is a verb.
What is the past tense of give someone something to think about?
The past tense of give someone something to think about is gave someone something to think about.

Words near give someone something to think about in the dictionary

  1. give someone hell
  2. give someone Jesse
  3. give someone Jessie
  4. give someone line
  5. give someone one
  6. give someone something to think about
  7. give someone the air
  8. give someone the arm
  9. give someone the bag
  10. give someone the boot
  11. give someone the brush-off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give someone something to think about (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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