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gift

Pronunciation: /ɡɪft/

The English word “gift” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Something given to another voluntarily, without charge.
  2. A talent or natural ability.
  3. Something gained incidentally, without effort.
  4. The act, right, or power of giving or bestowing.
  5. A footrace, often a short one with a prize, sometimes with a handicap system whereby runners start from different positions based on their past performance.

verb

  1. To give as a gift or donation.
  2. To give away, to concede easily.

Etymology

From Middle English yifte, ȝift, partly from Old English ġift, ġyft (“giving, consideration, dowry, wedding”) and Old Norse gipt (“gift, present, wedding”); both from Proto-Germanic *giftiz (“gift”). Equivalent to give + -t (etymologically yive + -t). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian jefte (“gift”), Dutch gift (“gift”) and its doublet gif (“poison”), German Gift (“poison”), Luxembourgish Gëft…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.