gift
noun
something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.
gift
1 American
[gift]
/ gɪft /
noun
-
gifts
plural
-
something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.
-
the act of giving.
-
something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned.
Those extra points he got in the game were a total gift.
-
a special ability or capacity; natural endowment; talent.
the gift of saying the right thing at the right time.
verb (used with object)
-
gifts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
gifted,
past participle, past
-
gifting
present participle
-
to present with as a gift; bestow gifts upon; endow with.
-
to present (someone) with a gift.
just the thing to gift the newlyweds.
GIFT
2
American
[gift]
/ gɪft /
noun
gift
1
British
/ ɡɪft /
noun
-
something given; a present
-
a special aptitude, ability, or power; talent
-
the power or right to give or bestow (esp in the phrases in the gift of, in ( someone's ) gift )
-
the act or process of giving
-
(usually negative) to find fault with a free gift or chance benefit
verb
-
to present (something) as a gift to (a person)
-
(often foll by with) to present (someone) with a gift
-
rare to endow with; bestow
GIFT
2
British
/ ɡɪft /
acronym
gift
Idioms
Synonym Usage
See present 2.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
giftsimple
-
giftssimple
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have giftedperfect
-
has giftedperfect
-
am giftingprogressive
-
are giftingprogressive
-
is giftingprogressive
-
have been giftingperfect progressive
-
has been giftingperfect progressive
Past
-
giftedsimple
-
had giftedperfect
-
was giftingprogressive
-
were giftingprogressive
-
had been giftingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gift
First recorded in 1125–75; Middle English, from Old Norse gift; cognate with Old English gift ( Middle English yift ) “marriage gift”; akin to give
Explanation
A gift is an item that's given without any expectation of payment — it's a present. A gift may be the present you receive on your birthday or it may be a natural gift or talent you possess — like your gift for reading lips. People give gifts to mark special occasions, like birthdays, weddings, anniversaries. and some holidays. Sometimes tourists buy gifts while on vacation and bring them home to their friends and family. Another kind of gift is a special ability: "She has such a gift for learning languages." The root of gift is probably the Old Norse gipt or gift, which means both "gift" and "good luck."
Vocabulary lists containing gift
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But her gift was to make you forget that; her gift was to make you believe, for those few minutes, that she was singing to you.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
“By converting a portion of your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, you’re essentially giving your beneficiaries a gift that keeps on giving,” he adds.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026
Those pillows are their best-selling gift item, retailing at $59.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
It’s the gift that keeps on giving: They stoke the flames, and the flames reward them back.
From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2026
I’m wearing my favorite T-shirt, one Dad got me as an Arizona gift.
From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila
PGA GIFT: All the past PGA champions at Quail Hollow might have stars in their eyes.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 8, 2017
Asch was trying to find a simpler way to do IVF, one that would not require the skills of an embryologist, when he hit upon the procedure he called gamete intra-Fallopian transfer, or GIFT.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Los Angeles couple went through a five-year effort that included hormone treatment, artificial insemination, an ectopic pregnancy, sperm washing and finally GIFT.
From Time Magazine Archive
In GIFT, by contrast, the embryo drifts quietly into the uterus, much as it would naturally.
From Time Magazine Archive
PARENTS' CHRISTMAS-BOX and NEW-YEAR's GIFT; containing the various Predictions of the Prophets respecting Jesus Christ. 1s.
From Jemima Placid or, The Advantage of Good-Nature by Mary Ann (n?e Maze) Kilner
Financial education is one of the greatest gifts a loved one can pass on to a child, because it sets them up to make informed decisions that could otherwise cost them thousands of dollars.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
She was given gifts from children's charities including a new car, a cruise in Tenerife, and also free X-Factor tickets.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
At their gravesites, we placed two metal sculptures, the “Final Blaze,” gifts from the Appalachian Trail community, many members of whom came to shovel earth upon the graves.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
Roggatz, 35, dutifully got to work ridding his grass of the gifts from his dogs, Django and Scout, with a plastic bag pinched between his fingers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
He was forever trailing her shadow during rehearsals, leaving her gifts in her dressing room, notes that she promptly dumped without opening.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
I was gifted a property from my parents several years ago when my children were very young.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026
The bride-to-be’s posts about the weekend of tennis, swimming, gifted clothes and meals resulted in more e-commerce sales and social-media followers for Yakira Bella, Gerszberg added.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
He added that she was "tremendously gifted" and passed her passion for music on to her family and the wider community through the founding of the Armagh Pipers Club with her husband, Brian.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
The line that set off the frenzy, in its entirety, is: “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026
But only the truly gifted ever leave that stage of traditional competence and become creators in their own right.
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
The new UK book gifting and reading programme has been announced in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, which has the Queen as its patron.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Warren Buffett did not donate to the Gates Foundation this year, ending a two-decade run of gifting Berkshire Hathaway shares to the philanthropy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Critics have raised a host of ethical, constitutional and security concerns about the gifting of an aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars by a foreign power like Qatar.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
Towering over all of them, arms stretched out as if gifting all these heroes to the world, is Chávez.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
I don’t think Ma could have spent five minutes in this place without running to her car and gifting it some good, high-quality bookends.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
