chuck up the sponge
verb
Simple meaning
Give up in the face of defeat of lacking hope.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
chuhkuhpthuhspuhnjSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʃʌˈkʌpðəsˈpʌndʒ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Give up in the face of defeat of lacking hope; admit defeat
dated
To quit; to give up; to admit defeat.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Give up in the face of defeat of lacking hope; admit defeat
Used this way, chuck up the sponge is a specialist word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Hopeful and forward-looking
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.