Word.ws English Dictionary

give the lie to

give the lie to verb: to reveal or prove (something) to be false; to refute.

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.
    • As you like this, give me the lie another time.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

give the lie to meaning in Malayalam, Kannada and Arabic

give the lie to in Malayalam

contradict, disprove, negate
അസത്യമാണെന്നു കാണിക്കുക, അസത്യമാണെന്നു തെളിയിക്കുക, ഖണ്ഡിക്കുക, നിഷേധിക്കുക, തർക്കിക്കുക, മറുത്തുപറയുക

give the lie to in Kannada

ಖಂಡಿಸು, ಅಸತ್ಯವೆಂದು ತೋರಿಸಿಕೊಡು

give the lie to in Arabic

to prove (something) to be false
كَذَّبَ kaḏḏaba

Synonyms of give the lie to

All synonyms of give the lie to

Forms of give the lie to

third-person singular presentgives the lie to
present participlegiving the lie to
pastgave the lie to
past participlegiven the lie to

Questions about give the lie to

What does give the lie to mean?
Give the lie to means to reveal or prove (something) to be false; to refute.
What is give the lie to in Malayalam?
Give the lie to in Malayalam is അസത്യമാണെന്നു കാണിക്കുക, അസത്യമാണെന്നു തെളിയിക്കുക, ഖണ്ഡിക്കുക. See Give the lie to meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is give the lie to?
Give the lie to is a verb.
What is the past tense of give the lie to?
The past tense of give the lie to is gave the lie to.

Words near give the lie to in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give the lie to (page history and authors); give the lie to (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); give the lie to (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-give the lie to.ogg.

Cite this entry: “give the lie to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/give_the_lie_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.