Word.ws English Dictionary

threw in the towel

threw in the towel is the simple past of throw in the towel.

Meaning of throw in the towel

Verb

throw in the towel (third-person singular simple present throws in the towel, present participle throwing in the towel, simple past threw in the towel, past participle thrown in the towel)

  1. (idiomatic) To quit; to give up.
    • If their restaurant can't get business even on Mother's Day, it might be time for them to throw in the towel.

Questions about threw in the towel

What is threw in the towel the simple past of?
Threw in the towel is the simple past of throw in the towel.

Words near threw in the towel in the dictionary

  1. threw in
  2. threw in at the deep end
  3. threw in one's hand
  4. threw in the cards
  5. threw in the sponge
  6. threw in the towel
  7. threw in with
  8. threw it back
  9. threw light on
  10. threw money around
  11. threw money away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: threw in the towel (page history and authors); throw in the towel (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: “threw in the towel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/threw_in_the_towel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.