Are you looking for a list of phrasal verbs with give?
If so you have come to the right place. In this post, we are going to look at 29 examples of phrasal verbs that you can use in your everyday conversation, to sound more like a native English speaker.
After you finish reading this article, don’t forget to test your knowledge by completing the exercises below.
Let’s get started
29 Phrasal Verbs With Give – Meaning, Examples, and Exercises
Give Away
- Meaning: To unintentionally reveal something about someone or something.
- Synonyms: Expose, reveal, let out, let in, disclose, tell on, betray, leak, let slip
- In a sentence: I wanted the party to be a surprise, but I accidentally gave it away when I mentioned we would see him again later that night.
Give (something) Away
- Meaning: To give something as a gift to another person. To give something to someone because you no longer need/want it.
- In a sentence: The convenient store on the corner is giving away free samples.
Give (someone) Away
- Meaning: To officially present the bride to the groom during the wedding ceremony.
- In a sentence: Tears ran down his face as he gave away his only daughter on her wedding day.
Give Away
- Meaning: To lose in a competition by making too many mistakes.
- Use in a sentence: If they don’t start playing more defense, they risk giving away the whole game.
Give Back
- Meaning: To return something back to the person that owns it or the person that gave it to you.
- Synonyms: Return
- In a sentence: After you are done reading the book, please give it back to John.
Give Back
- Meaning: To make possible for someone to do something again or to have something again.
- Synonyms: Restore, return, reinstate
- Use in a sentence: After the company learned that Max was innocent, they decided to give him his job back.
Give Back
- Meaning: To donate or volunteer to express one’s appreciation.
- Synonyms: Repay, payback
- Use in a sentence: In order to give back to the community, Jessica volunteered to work at the park every Saturday.
Give Forth
- Meaning: To emit vapors or fumes.
- Synonyms: Exhale, Emit
- In a sentence: The candles give forth a strong scent.
Give In (British English)
- Meaning: To turn in or to submit something.
- Synonyms: Turn in, submit, hand over, hand in.
- In a sentence: She gave in her book report to Mr. Smith.
Give In
- Meaning: To stop competing, to yield, to surrender, to admit defeat. To finally do something that you initially didn’t want to do.
- Synonyms: yield, give up, defer, throw in the towel, back down, cave in
- In a sentence: After seeing their sad faces, their father finally gave in and allowed them to go to the park with their friends.
Give Of (oneself)
- Meaning: To devote oneself to something. To make oneself available for something. To contribute without expecting anything in return.
- Synonyms: Contribute
- In a Sentence: As a good teacher, Megan freely gives of her time and energy to her students.
Give Off
- Meaning: To emit. To produce something such as light, heat, sound or smell.
- Synonym: Give forth, emit.
- In a sentence: The fire wasn’t big enough to give off enough heat to keep us warm.
- The roses give off a nice smell.
Give out (something)
- Meaning: To distribute, or to issue
- Synonyms: hand out, distribute, to pass out
- In A Sentence: The teacher asked Ryan to give out tomorrow’s homework assignment to each student.
Give out
- Meaning: To produce light, sound, heat, etc. To emit.
- Synonym: Give off
- Use in a sentence: As he yawned, he gave out a loud noise.
Give Out
- Meaning: To stop working.
- Synonyms: fail, come to an end, break down
- Use in a sentence: After many hours, the handle finally gave out and would no longer move.
Give Out
- Meaning: To become exhausted, to run out of something
- Synonyms: collapse
- Use in a sentence: After running 5 miles straight, his legs gave out and he fell to his knees.
Give Over
- Meaning: To surrender oneself, to yield
- Synonyms: Give in
- Use in a sentence: Even though it was difficult, he finally gave himself over to grief.
Give Over
- Meaning: To entrust someone else with something that is yours
- Synonyms: To hand over
- Use in a sentence: He gave over the papers to the realtor.
Give Over (British English)
- Meaning: To stop doing something
- Synonyms: discontinue, desist, stop, knock off
- Use in a sentence: The father turned around and told the boys to give over fighting in the car.
Give Over
- Meaning: To set aside for a specific purpose.
- Use in a sentence: Since the last boy moved out of the house the room in the back has been given over to storage.
Give Up
- Meaning: to stop trying to do something.
- Synonyms: To cease, give in, call it a day, quit
- Use in a sentence: Jack spent an hour looking for his book, but eventually, he gave up and went home.
- I give up on trying to read this book in the car.
Give Up (something)
- Meaning: To stop doing something that you do on a regular basis.
- Synonyms: to give up doing something, abandon, quit
- Use in a sentence: Jenny was happy that her father had given up smoking for good.
Give (Yourself/Somebody) Up
- Meaning: To surrender. To allow oneself or somebody else to be caught.
- Synonyms: Give in, Hand over, turn in
- Use in a sentence: After four hours of suspense the gunman finally gave himself up to police.
Give (something) Up
- Meaning: To give somebody something that is yours
- Synonyms: Relinquish
- Use in a sentence: The young man kindly gave up his seat to the pregnant woman on the bus.
Give Up
- Meaning: To lose hope for or to lose hope of seeing again.
- Synonyms: give up hope, lose heart, abandon hope, concede
- Use in a sentence: After two weeks of searching for the missing plane, the crew and the passengers were given up for dead.
Give Way
- Meaning: To be replaced by something else
- Use in a sentence: After seeing her reaction his anger gave way to tears.
Give Way
- Meaning: To agree to do something that someone else wants you to do.
- Synonyms: adhere to, surrender, yield
- Use in a sentence: After arguing with his mother, he finally gave way to her request.
Give Way
- Meaning: To break under pressure
- Synonyms: break, collapse
- Use in a sentence: They fireman said it is unsafe to enter the building because the floors could give way at any moment.
Give Way (British English Only)
- Meaning: To yield to pedestrians or other vehicles on the road. Allow somebody else to go first.
- Synonyms: yield
- Use in a sentence: Give way to pedestrians on the crosswalk.
Exercises With The Phrasal Verb Give
Now that we better understand how to use these phrasal verbs, let’s put it to use in the following exercise.
Please select the correct answer in the following sentence. ( scroll down to see the answer key)
- Don’t (give up / give in / give out) you can do it.
- They were playing so bad, they nearly (gave the game away / gave up the game / gave in the game)
- Mrs. Smith doesn’t want to (give back / give away / give forth) her secret family recipe.
- John is stubborn, he doesn’t (give off / give in/ give over) very easily.
- The workers (were giving out / were giving off / giving back) a flyer to everyone that walked by the new store.
- The landlord (will give in / will give away / will give over) the keys once you provide the security deposit.
- The young boy unselfishly (gave away / gave forth / gave in) his favorite toys to the needy children.
- I don’t think that is yours, please (give it away / give it back / give it off) to the rightful owner.
- I’ll (give away / give forth / give back} the book to Jerry after I have had a chance to read it.
- I no longer want to watch the movie because my friend ( gave out / gave away / gave in) the ending
- We (had given the cat up / had given the cat out / had given the cat away) as lost
- To make this world a better place we need to (give forth / give of / give out) our time, energy and resources.
- Before class, he (gave in / gave out / gave up) his report even though it was already late.
- Every time I turn on my computer it (gives up / gives of / gives off) a weird smell.
- It was nice to see a young person (give away / give up / give of) his seat for an elderly woman on the bus.
Exercise Answer Key
- give up
- gave the game away
- give away
- give in
- were giving out
- will give over
- gave away
- give it back
- give back
- gave away
- had given the cat up
- give of
- gave in
- gives off
- give up
There you have it! A complete list of all the phrasal verbs with give. (complete with meanings, examples and yes exercises)
Did we miss something? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.