Giveaway

How to spell giveaway

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce giveaway

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does giveaway mean?

1. nounSomething handed out free, often as a promotion, or the event of doing so.
2. nounA sign or detail that unintentionally reveals a secret or the truth.

Giveaway in a sentence

• The magazine included a free giveaway with every issue.

• His nervous laugh was a dead giveaway that he was lying.

• The radio station ran a giveaway for concert tickets all week.

• The fresh paint smell was a giveaway that the room had just been decorated.

Where does giveaway come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound built from two very old Germanic words. 'Give' descends from Old English 'giefan', meaning to hand something over or grant it, and 'away' comes from Old English 'aweg' (literally 'on the way', from 'a-' plus 'weg', the ancestor of 'way'). The phrasal verb 'give away' was used for centuries to mean handing something over without payment, and by the late 1800s writers began fusing the two words into a single noun for a free distribution. A second, very common meaning grew out of the same phrase: when you 'give away' a secret, you unintentionally reveal it, so a 'giveaway' became any tell-tale clue. The spelling is simply the two whole words written together, which is the easiest part to remember once you stop expecting a hyphen.

How the word is built

• give (to hand over freely)
• away (off, aside): a closed compound from a phrasal verb 'give away'