Word.ws English Dictionary

giving the lie to

giving the lie to is the present participle and gerund of give the lie to.

Meaning of give the lie to

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.

Questions about giving the lie to

What is giving the lie to the present participle and gerund of?
Giving the lie to is the present participle and gerund of give the lie to.

Words near giving the lie to in the dictionary

  1. giving the elbow
  2. giving the finger
  3. giving the floor
  4. giving the game away
  5. giving the lie
  6. giving the lie to
  7. giving the royal treatment
  8. giving the sack
  9. giving the stem
  10. giving the time of day
  11. giving the word

Source and license

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