Word.ws English Dictionary

throws up the sponge

throws up the sponge is the third-person singular simple present indicative of throw up the sponge.

Meaning of throw up the sponge

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

Questions about throws up the sponge

What is throws up the sponge the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Throws up the sponge is the third-person singular simple present indicative of throw up the sponge.

Words near throws up the sponge in the dictionary

  1. throws together
  2. throws under a bus
  3. throws under the bus
  4. throws up
  5. throws up one's hands
  6. throws up the sponge
  7. throws wobblies
  8. throwster
  9. throwsters
  10. throwstick
  11. throwsticks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throws up the sponge (page history and authors); throw up the sponge (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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