to give away
7
4.4
- phrasal verb
- /ɡɪv əˈweɪ/
- Formal
:
dar en matrimonio
- In April, I gave away our oldest daughter, Breana.
- fathers give away the bride
- give away your daughter
- father giving away
Examples
-
"Who gives away the bride?" Joe Billy asked.
Fiction book (1990) -
Florian himself, astonished at the myriad of emotions that were nearly choking him, gave away the bride, who was radiant in a white satin gown and carried a bouquet of white roses.
Fiction book (1997) -
Now I have to give away our middle daughter, Jackie, in November!
Blog text (22) -
Think he's crying because he's giving away his daughter?
-
At the wedding, my father proudly stood by me to give away the bride.
-
During the ceremony, it was a special moment when her father chose to give away his daughter.
-
As tradition dictates, he was the one to give away the bride to her husband.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The core sense of transfer in 'give' plus movement/removal in 'away' supports a reading of handing someone over, so a learner who knows the words can plausibly infer a meaning involving transfer of the daughter. However, the specific ritualized sense 'to present a bride to the bridegroom' is culturally specific and reflects a conventionalized phrasal-verb use that may not be fully predictable from the parts alone, so some prior exposure or cultural knowledge is needed.
Etymology
Give away at a wedding comes from the image of a father walking his daughter down the aisle and handing her to the groom. He gives her away, so he 'hands her over', and the phrase now means that formal handover in marriage.