4 ms·

You may be around 400 years too late to this battle, apparently. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/gift-as-a-verb https://www.merriam-webster.com/w

• yamtaddle 4y ago
  Webster's 1913 lists only the sense: Gift, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Gifted; p. pr. & vb. n. Gifting.] To endow with some power or faculty. Your link notes that much older examples exist for "to give as a gift", but also that it wasn't popularized until the 1990s, probably by Seinfeld. Might be why it strikes bradleyjg as odd—it was unusual until fairly recently, so one is unlikely to encounter it used that way in older media. [EDIT] Are the downvotes because readers are taking the "probably by Seinfeld" as my own speculation? It's not, it's from the parent's link.
  • vasco 4y ago
    Despite other arguments, even taking at face value that gift as a verb was popularized in the 1990's, why are you fighthing about language which at the worst, has been in common parlance for nearly 30 years, and if we take other sources, even longer?
    • yamtaddle 4y ago
      Who are you responding to? I wasn't fighting about anything.