give the shirt off one's back

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Give anything and everything one possesses. For example, Tom is truly generous—he'll give you the shirt off his back. This hyperbolic idiom was first recorded in 1771.

QUIZ

CUDDLE UP! A COZY QUIZ ON FALL WORDS HAS ARRIVED

If autumn is your ideal season, spice up your repertoire of "fall" vocabulary with this quiz on some warm and vivid descriptive words for the season.

Question 1 of 10

Which of the following words means “to make a crackling sound; crackle”?

crisp

crepitate

fuscous

TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT

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Words nearby give the shirt off one's back

Give the devil his due, give the eye, give the finger, give the go-ahead, give the lie to, give the shirt off one's back, give the slip, give the time of day, give the word, give the works, give to understand

How to use give the shirt off one's back in a sentence

Added to drinking water at concentrations of around one part per million, fluoride ions stick to dental plaque.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
In his view, a writer has only one duty: to be present in his books.
Houellebecq’s Incendiary Novel Imagines France With a Muslim President|Pierre Assouline|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Yet this, in the end, is a book from which one emerges sad, gloomy, disenchanted, at least if we agree to take it seriously.
Houellebecq’s Incendiary Novel Imagines France With a Muslim President|Pierre Assouline|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
But give the Kingdom credit for its sense of mercy: The lashes will be administered only 50 at a time.
In Defense of Blasphemy|Michael Tomasky|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST

France 24 is providing live, round-the-clock coverage of both scenes as they progress.
LIVE Coverage of the Paris Terror Attacks||January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Practise gliding in the form of inflection, or slide, from one extreme of pitch to another.
Expressive Voice Culture|Jessie Eldridge Southwick
He alludes to it as one of their evil customs and used by them to produce insensibility.
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce|E. R. Billings.
There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had both died; but no one knew anything certainly.
Ramona|Helen Hunt Jackson
I waited three months more, in great impatience, then sent him back to the same post, to see if there might be a reply.
The Boarded-Up House|Augusta Huiell Seaman
Truth is a torch, but one of enormous size; so that we slink past it in rather a blinking fashion for fear it should burn us.
Pearls of Thought|Maturin M. Ballou