giveaway
/ˈɡɪvəweɪ
/informal
noun
1A thing that is given free, often for promotional purposes: every issue is packed with competitions and great giveaways...
- At the ABC's internal local radio awards, the gong for best promotion went to a giveaway of a free trip to France.
- Free giveaways for the first 100 people at each campus.
- That probably doesn't mean shattered windows and office occupations, but more likely petitions and free food giveaways like one held last March.
1.1 American Football & Ice Hockey A loss of possession of the ball or puck to the opposing team: the Patriots have 16 takeaways and two giveaways during their five-game winning streak
2A thing that makes an inadvertent revelation: the shape of the parcel was a dead giveaway...
- Find the two dead giveaways in the email, below.
- The hotels you stay in, the cafes you frequent and the shopping strip you trawl - all dead giveaways I'm afraid.
- It's clearly been designed with web design companies in mind - the assumption that both workers and clients will communicate through a website is a dead giveaway.
adjective [attributive]
1Free of charge: giveaway CDs...
- The contents of the giveaway goody bags were largely related to estrogen replacement.
- The giveaway holiday vouchers are a way of drawing everyone's attention to the large sums of money that ex-smokers find themselves with.
- Rather than plastic money boxes, giveaway biros or vouchers for DVDs, the Bradford-based mortgage lender decided that something with four wheels might prove a little more persuasive.
1.1(Of prices) very low: bread at giveaway prices...
- Everything old has to go to make way for new stock and many more books, for adults and children have been added to the sale at giveaway prices.
- The source of that class was the corrupt decision to sell off the state's assets (above all in energy and minerals) at giveaway prices and without open competition, in return for huge kickbacks.
- On the other hand, during the colonial era the authorities would try to sell the unclaimed possessions of deceased contract workers and found that there were no buyers, even at giveaway prices.
2Inadvertently revealing something: small giveaway mannerisms...
- But the new campaign is in parts economical with factual information - even if the giveaway answers are buried elsewhere in the pamphlet.
- Those last images of him in 1993 before his enforced retirement with his bloated face and blotched, spotty, wretched complexion, a giveaway sign of the soon to be irretrievably poisoned liver, were sad indeed.
- Even without such giveaway settings, the Canadian accent and humour still would exude unmistakeably from a huge proportion of playwriting.