Word.ws English Dictionary

throw in the towel

throw in the towel verb: to quit; to give up.

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.
    • In short, there was so much space and so many things to shove things behind that most people, called on to find a silver cow-creamer there, would have said “Oh, what's the use?” and thrown in the towel.1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VIII

throw in the towel meaning in Tamil, Malay and Indonesian

throw in the towel in Tamil

தோல்வியை, இயலாமையை ஒப்புக்கொள், முயற்சியைக் கைவிடு

throw in the towel in Malay

(idiomatic) to quit; to give up
putih mata

throw in the towel in Indonesian

(idiomatic) to quit; to give up
melempar handuk

Synonyms of throw in the towel

Forms of throw in the towel

third-person singular presentthrows in the towel
present participlethrowing in the towel
pastthrew in the towel
past participlethrown in the towel

Origin of throw in the towel

From the traditional signal from a boxer's support staff of throwing such an item into a boxing ring to indicate that the contestant cannot continue the match and is forfeiting to the opponent.

Questions about throw in the towel

What does throw in the towel mean?
Throw in the towel means to quit; to give up.
What is throw in the towel in Tamil?
Throw in the towel in Tamil is தோல்வியை, இயலாமையை ஒப்புக்கொள், முயற்சியைக் கைவிடு. See Throw in the towel meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is throw in the towel?
Throw in the towel is a verb.
What is the past tense of throw in the towel?
The past tense of throw in the towel is threw in the towel.

Words near throw in the towel in the dictionary

  1. throw in one's hand
  2. throw in one's lot with
  3. throw in the bark
  4. throw in the cards
  5. throw in the sponge
  6. throw in the towel
  7. throw in with
  8. throw ins
  9. throw into a cocked hat
  10. throw it back
  11. throw lathe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throw in the towel (page history and authors); throw in the towel (Tamil 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-throw in the towel.ogg.

Cite this entry: “throw in the towel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/throw_in_the_towel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.