give over

verb

1. (tr) to transfer, esp to the care or custody of another

2. (tr) to assign or resign to a specific purpose or function

   the day was given over to pleasure

3. informal,  to cease (an activity)

   give over fighting, will you!

Idioms and Phrases

Hand over, entrust, as in They gave over all the papers to the library . [Late 1400s]

Also, give oneself over . Devote or surrender to a particular purpose or use, as in The whole day was given over to merrymaking , or He gave himself over to grief . [Late 1400s]

Example Sentences

There’s so much trauma and, “But what if I did just give over to something.”

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So there’s all of these reasons he can’t give over to anything.

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And, of course, Donald Trump loves the idea of creating cities that exist outside of federal authority, putting out a video in 2023 promising to give over federal lands to oligarchs to begin their mini-dictatorships.

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His plan — which Starr notes “might have been a cover for a London company anxious to acquire land” — was for Mexico to give over as much as 20,000 square miles of land in Mexican California to settle about 15,000 Irish Catholic families.

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You can’t totally give over because you know that there’s something has to be scratched that is unknown.

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Related Words

• abandon 
• break off 
• cease 
• conclude 
• discontinue 
• drop 
• give up 
• halt 
• leave 
• retire 
• suspend 
• terminate 
• withdraw