Word.ws English Dictionary

throw up the sponge

throw up the sponge verb: to give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; to throw in the towel.

Verb

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

  1. (archaic, idiomatic, intransitive, slang) To give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; to throw in the towel.
    • But he was too brave a man to throw up the sponge to fate, and had work to do yet.1870, James Russell Lowell, “Lessing”, in Among My Books, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 330
    • At a time when official railway operators throw up the sponge for much less reason, it seems that only voluntary enthusiasm would ever contemplate the task at all.1958 July, R. K. Kirkland, “Into the Mountains on the Festiniog Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 450

throw up the sponge meaning in Bengali

throw up the sponge in Bengali

একটি প্রতিযোগিতা ছেড়ে দেওয়া, পরাজয় স্বীকার করা, হাল ছেড়ে দেওয়া

Forms of throw up the sponge

third-person singular presentthrows up the sponge
present participlethrowing up the sponge
pastthrew up the sponge
past participlethrown up the sponge

Origin of throw up the sponge

From a custom of the boxing ring, the person employed to sponge a pugilist between rounds throwing his sponge in the air in token of defeat.

Questions about throw up the sponge

What does throw up the sponge mean?
Throw up the sponge means to give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; to throw in the towel.
What is throw up the sponge in Bengali?
Throw up the sponge in Bengali is একটি প্রতিযোগিতা ছেড়ে দেওয়া, পরাজয় স্বীকার করা, হাল ছেড়ে দেওয়া. See Throw up the sponge meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is throw up the sponge?
Throw up the sponge is a verb.
What is the past tense of throw up the sponge?
The past tense of throw up the sponge is threw up the sponge.

Words near throw up the sponge in the dictionary

  1. throw under a bus
  2. throw under the bus
  3. throw up
  4. throw up a brick
  5. throw up one's hands
  6. throw up the sponge
  7. throw up to
  8. throw wobblies
  9. throw-away
  10. throw-aways
  11. throw-back

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throw up the sponge (page history and authors); throw up the sponge (Bengali 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 up the sponge.ogg.

Cite this entry: “throw up the sponge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/throw_up_the_sponge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.