What Gives Definition

phrase

(colloquial) What is wrong? Why is this happening?

Not even thirty minutes after leaving the shower, I start getting itches on my head. What gives?
Wiktionary

(colloquial, possibly dated) What is happening? What is going on?

What gives with you and Martha?
Wiktionary
(colloquial) How are you?
Wiktionary

Origin of What Gives

  • First attested in 1940. in John O'Hara's 1940 novel Pal Joey. The term is considered by the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Second Edition (2013) and several other references to be a calque of German was gibt's? and/or a Yiddish equivalent. Brian Joseph considers this unlikely, however, and speculates that despite its extremely late attestation, it and the German was gibt's may "allow[] for a reconstruction of a Proto-West-Germanic existential use of 'give', which survives marginally into present usage."

    From Wiktionary

What Gives Sentence Examples

  • But above all, what gives the sentences of Marcus Aurelius their enduring value and fascination, and renders them superior to the utterances of Epictetus and Seneca, is that they are the gospel of his life.

  • Your leg usage is what gives you control of proximity, adjusting level and making pirouettes.

  • We find that this connexion is what gives intelligibility to ceaseless and what seemed chaotic changes, converting them into the divinely concatenated system which we call the universe."

  • Think about what gives the person pleasure, what makes them happy, and work to find something that they can use in those kinds of pursuits.

  • This French beverage is what gives the French Martini cocktail its name.

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Words Starting With

WWHWHA

Words Ending With

SESVES

Unscrambles

what gives

Words Starting With W and Ending With S

Starts With W & Ends With SStarts With WH & Ends With SStarts With W & Ends With ES

Word Length

10 Letter Words10 Letter Words Starting With W10 Letter Words Ending With S