give over

English

Verb

give over (third-person singular simple present gives over, present participle giving over, simple past gave over, past participle given over)

1. (transitive, now rare) To give up, hand over, surrender (something).
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 4:

     Diocletian, the emperor, was so much affected with it that he gave over his sceptre and turned gardener.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess:

     As soon as Julia returned with a constable, Timothy, who was on the point of exhaustion, prepared to give over [the fight] to him gratefully. The newcomer turned out to be a powerful youngster, fully trained and eager to help, and he stripped off his tunic at once.

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 76:

     Until 1961 the line was electrified only as far as Rickmansworth, where steam locomotives were attached or detached in place of electric ones. In the same year the stations north of Amersham were given over to British Rail.

2. (transitive) To entrust (something) to another.

   She gave the deeds over to the solicitor.

3. (transitive) To devote or resign to a particular purpose or activity; to yield completely.

   The factory has been entirely given over to aircraft manufacture.

   He gave himself over to a monastic life.

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 3, ch. II, Gospel of Mammonism

     For, as indeed was very natural in such case, all government of the Poor by the Rich has long ago been given over to Supply-and-demand, Laissez-faire and such like, and universally declared to be ‘impossible’.

4. (transitive) To quit, to abandon.
5. (UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, intransitive) To give up; abandon; desert; stop.

   Give over with your nonsense, will you!

   • 1906, Jack London, White Fang‎^[1]:

     She was getting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Once, in the pursuit of a rabbit, which she ordinarily would have caught with ease, she gave over and lay down and rested.

Anagrams

• overgive, vegivore