give up
phrasal verbgive up
- to stop trying to do something
- They gave up without a fight.
- She doesn't give up easily.
- I give up—tell me the answer.
Oxford Collocations DictionaryGive up is used with these nouns as the object:- ambition
- attempt
- authority
- …
give somebody up
- (also give up on somebody)to believe that somebody is never going to arrive, get better, be found, etc.
- There you are at last! We'd given you up.
- We hadn't heard from him for so long, we'd given him up for dead.
- to stop having a relationship with somebody
- Why don't you give him up?
give something up
- [no passive] to stop doing or having something
- She didn't give up work when she had the baby.
- We'd given up hope of ever having children.
- give up doing something You ought to give up smoking.
- to spend time on a task that you would normally spend on something else
- I gave up my weekend to help him paint his apartment.
give something up (to somebody)
- to hand something over to somebody else
- We had to give our passports up to the authorities.
- He gave up his seat to a pregnant woman (= stood up to allow her to sit down).
give yourself/somebody up (to somebody)
- to offer yourself/somebody to be captured by somebody in authority
- After a week on the run he gave himself up to the police.