Word.ws English Dictionary

giving someone the slip

giving someone the slip is the present participle and gerund of give someone the slip.

Meaning of give someone the slip

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To evade, escape, or get away from somebody.
    • The police chased the suspect for two days before he finally gave them the slip and vanished.

Questions about giving someone the slip

What is giving someone the slip the present participle and gerund of?
Giving someone the slip is the present participle and gerund of give someone the slip.

Words near giving someone the slip in the dictionary

  1. giving someone the gears
  2. giving someone the heave-ho
  3. giving someone the old heave-ho
  4. giving someone the runaround
  5. giving someone the shits
  6. giving someone the slip
  7. giving someone the time
  8. giving someone their cards
  9. giving someone their flowers
  10. giving someone to understand
  11. giving someone what for

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: giving someone the slip (page history and authors); give someone the slip (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: “giving someone the slip.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/giving_someone_the_slip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.