Phrasal verbs with 'GIVE'

GIVE AWAY – to let someone have your possessions or products for free / to tell smth that is supposed to be a secret / to show an emotion that you don’t want to show / to walk a woman down the aisle on her wedding day (usually it’s the father who leads the bride towards the groom).

Laura said that they were giving away their stuff to their neighbors to move to another country. I don’t think Laura meant to give away her secret but I guessed that she and Greg were planning to elope. I hoped my face hadn’t given away my disappointment. I knew her father would be heartbroken if he wasn’t able to give his daughter away on her wedding day.

GIVE BACK – to return smth to someone who had it before (both literally and figuratively).

One day I lost a bag with all my money inside and a stranger found it and gave it back to me. This gesture gave me back my belief in humanity.

GIVE IN – to stop trying to do smth and accept your defeat / (give in to) to yield to smth you’ve been trying to resist / to submit smth (like a school paper) / to stop resisting someone’s attempts to persuade you.

Ike had been trying to juggle his work and study for almost two years and he was on the verge of giving in. But he managed not to give in to his despair. And after pulling another all-nighter, he was able to give in his paper. It was forty minutes after the deadline, so he begged Mr. McJust to accept it and after an hour of his constant nagging, Mr. McJust finally gave in.

GIVE OF – to give of your resources (money, time, energy, efforts, etc.), esp. to help someone.

The Doogooders family gave of their time and money to help us recover after the fire and we are forever grateful to them.

GIVE OFF – to emit/produce smth like heat, light, sounds, smells, etc.

Candles in Ms. Tabby’s living room gave off a sickly-sweet smell of something I couldn’t recognize.

GIVE ONTO – to open towards smth.

The door on the west side of the house gives onto a beautiful garden.

GIVE OUT – to distribute smth among several people / to produce (about heat, light, sounds, smells, etc.) / to be used up (about supplies or resources) / to stop functioning (about machines or body parts).

After the cave entrance collapsed, our guide gave out tiny headlamps to everyone in the group. The headlamps gave out weak yellow light. We knew that our food would give out in three days but surprisingly no one panicked. We just hoped that the hearts of some of the older people in the group wouldn’t give out under the stress.

GIVE UP – to stop trying to do smth difficult / to abandon smth (e.g. an idea or hope etc.) / to stop doing smth you regularly do, to quit it / (give up on) to stop trying to help someone or make them change their ways.

We knew someone would try to rescue us and they wouldn’t give up until they found us. So we never gave up our hope. When I was in the cave, I swore I would clean up my act and give up drinking if I ever got out. And I told myself that I would thank my wife for never giving up on me.

GIVE WAY – to break under pressure / to yield to smth or someone, to be persuaded to do smth you didn’t want to do.

Everyone waited for the only bridge in the town to give way as the number of cars in the town was rising over the years. After weeks of discussions, the mayor finally gave way and agreed to build a new bridge.

GIVE WAY TO – to be replaced by smth / to let another vehicle go before yours.

After the bridge was built, old traffic laws gave way to the new ones. And they were so confusing that it was hard to tell who must give way to whom on both bridges.