give: [OE] Give is part of a widespread Germanic family of verbs, including also German geben, Dutch geven, Swedish giva, and Danish give, not to mention Gothic giban. They all come from a prehistoric Germanic *geban, a verb of uncertain ancestry (it has been suggested that it was related to Latin habēre ‘have’, their opposite meaning being accounted for by a shared notion of ‘reaching out the hands’ – either to ‘take and have’ or to ‘give’).
give (v.)
Old English giefan (West Saxon) "to give, bestow, deliver to another; allot, grant; commit, devote, entrust," class V strong verb (past tense geaf, past participle giefen), from Proto-Germanic *geban (cognates: Old Frisian jeva, Middle Dutch gheven, Dutch geven, Old High German geban, German geben, Gothic giban), from PIE *ghabh- "to take, hold, have, give" (see habit). It became yiven in Middle English, but changed to guttural "g" by influence of Old Norse gefa "to give," Old Danish giv?.
Meaning "to yield to pressure" is from 1570s. Give in "yield" is from 1610s; give out is mid-14c. as "publish, announce;" meaning "run out, break down" is from 1520s. Give up "surrender, resign, quit" is mid-12c. To give (someone) a cold seems to reflect the old belief that one could be cured of disease by deliberately infecting others. What gives? "what is happening?" is attested from 1940. To not give a (some thing regarded as trivial and valueless) is from c. 1300 (early examples were a straw, a grass, a mite).
give (n.)
"capacity for yielding to pressure," 1868, from give (v.). The Middle English noun yeve, meant "that which is given or offered; a contribution of money," often as tribute, or in expectation of something in return.
雙語例句
1. When life gets hard and you want to give up, remember that life is full of ups and downs, and without the downs, the ups would mean nothing.
當生活很艱難，你想要放棄的時候，請記住，生活充滿了起起落落，如果沒有低谷，那站在高處也失去了意義。
來自
2. "I can't give you an answer now," he hedged.
“我現在不能回答你，”他閃避道。
來自柯林斯例句
3. Give the cardboard two or three coats of varnish to harden it.
在紙板上涂兩三層清漆使其變硬。
來自柯林斯例句
4. How very thoughtless. I'll give him a piece of my mind.
真是太沒頭腦了，我要告訴他我很生氣。
來自柯林斯例句
5. Mr Dudley has pledged to give any award to charity.