Word.ws English Dictionary

give the game away

give the game away verb: to mistakenly reveal a secret.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To mistakenly reveal a secret.
    • You don't want to mention the money involved; that would give the game away.
    • Just as the fearsome prison guard Mr Swivel was becoming more and more suspicious as to why these two had been under the table for so long, Flip slid up on to Dad’s chair. Without her glasses and wearing Dad’s prison overalls, she passed rather well for her nephew. Next, Dad slid up on to Flip’s...2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN

Forms of give the game away

third-person singular presentgives the game away
present participlegiving the game away
pastgave the game away
past participlegiven the game away

Questions about give the game away

What does give the game away mean?
Give the game away means to mistakenly reveal a secret.
What part of speech is give the game away?
Give the game away is a verb.
What is the past tense of give the game away?
The past tense of give the game away is gave the game away.

Words near give the game away in the dictionary

  1. give the dirts
  2. give the elbow
  3. give the finger
  4. give the fingers
  5. give the floor
  6. give the game away
  7. give the go-by
  8. give the lie
  9. give the lie to
  10. give the mitten to
  11. give the royal treatment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give the game away (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “give the game away.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/give_the_game_away. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.