Word.ws English Dictionary

giving up

giving up is the present participle and gerund of give up.

Meaning of give up

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone).
    • He was surrounded, so gave himself up.
    Synonyms:
    surrender, yield
  2. (transitive) To relinquish (something)
    • He gave up his seat to an old man.
    Synonyms:
    forlend, surrender, yield
  3. (transitive) Devote or dedicate (oneself, one's life, etc.) to something.
    • I gave myself up to working for this cause.
  4. (transitive) To have someone obtain (something) to one's disadvantage; to concede.
    • A good pitcher will give up very few home runs.
  5. (transitive) To stop or quit (an activity, etc.).
    • They gave up the search when it got dark.
    Synonyms:
    cease, discontinue, blin, turn away from
  6. (transitive) To abandon (someone or something)
    • I gave up my faith years ago.
    Synonyms:
    desert, forlet, forsake

See all 12 meanings of give up

Questions about giving up

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

Words near giving up in the dictionary

  1. giving tongue
  2. Giving Tuesday
  3. giving two fucks
  4. giving two squirts
  5. giving two squirts of piss
  6. giving up
  7. giving up the ghost
  8. giving vent to
  9. giving voice
  10. giving way
  11. giving weight

Source and license

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