# gift

Pronunciation: say "GIFT" /ɡɪft/

## Noun

1. Something given to another person voluntarily, without payment or charge.
   - Simple: Something you give to someone freely, without asking for money.
   - _He surprised his grandmother with a gift on her birthday._
   - _The museum received several valuable gifts from private collectors._
2. A natural talent or ability for doing something particularly well.
   - Simple: A natural ability to do something very well.
   - _Her gift for storytelling kept the whole audience spellbound._
   - _He showed an unexpected gift for solving complex puzzles._
4. Something gained by chance or luck, without any effort.
   - Simple: Something good you get easily, without working for it.
   - _The defender's mistake was a gift to the opposing striker._
   - _A sunny afternoon in November feels like an unexpected gift._
6. The act, right, or power of giving or bestowing something.
   - Simple: The right or power to give something, or to decide who gets it.
   - _The position remained in the gift of the local landowner for centuries._
   - _Such honors were once entirely in the gift of the monarch._

## Verb

3. To give something to another person as a present or donation.
   - Simple: To give something to someone as a present.
   - _He gifted a rare first edition to the university library._
   - _Many donors gift shares of stock to reduce their taxes._
5. To give away or concede something easily.
   - Simple: To let someone win or get something too easily.
   - _A careless pass gifted the visitors their winning point._
   - _Defenders who gift opponents free chances rarely keep their place._
7. To provide a person with an inborn talent, ability, or special quality, most often in the passive (be gifted with).
   - Simple: To give someone a special talent or quality that they are born with.
   - _Genes may gift a sprinter with natural speed, but only years of training make a champion._
   - _The young pianist was gifted with an extraordinary memory for music._

## Origin

Proto-Germanic *giftiz ("gift") gave both Old English ġift, meaning "giving, dowry, wedding," and Old Norse gipt, meaning "gift, present, wedding," and the two together produced Middle English gift. In form it is basically give plus the suffix -t. Dutch gift and German Gift, which means "poison," are cognates.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/gift (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).