white flag, show the

Idioms

Also,. Surrender, yield, as in Our opponents held all the cards tonight, so we showed the white flag and left early. This expression alludes to the white flag indicating a surrender in battle, a custom apparently dating from Roman times and adopted as an international symbol of surrender or truce. [Late 1600s]

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023