Origins
The English verb 'give' descends from Old English 'giefan,' from Proto-Germanic *gebaną, which traces to the Proto-Indo-European root *gʰebʰ- meaning 'to give' — or, remarkably, 'to receive.' This semantic ambiguity at the PIE level is one of the most fascinating features of the word's history.
The PIE root *gʰebʰ- appears to have denoted the act of transfer itself, without inherently specifying whether the subject was the giver or the receiver. In the Germanic branch, the root specialized toward the giver's perspective: Proto-Germanic *gebaną meant 'to give,' and this meaning is preserved in all the modern Germanic languages — German 'geben,' Dutch 'geven,' Swedish 'ge' (shortened from 'giva'), Danish 'give,' Norwegian 'gi,' and the extinct Gothic 'giban.' But in Latin, the same root produced 'habēre,' meaning 'to have' or 'to hold' — the receiver's perspective. From Latin 'habēre' come English borrowings like 'habit' (a thing one has or holds), 'inhabit,' 'exhibit,' and 'prohibit.'
The Modern English form 'give' with its hard /ɡ/ shows the influence of Old Norse 'gefa.' Native Old English 'giefan' would have developed through palatalization into something more like 'yive' (compare 'yield' from OE 'gieldan'), as the Old English palatal 'g' before front vowels regularly became the /j/ sound. The hard /ɡ/ that English actually has in 'give' reflects the Norse form, which preserved the velar stop. This Norse influence is also visible in cognate pairs like 'get' (Norse) versus the native English doublet that was lost, and 'gift' (from Old Norse 'gift,' itself from *gebaną with the abstract noun suffix *-tiz).
Old English Period
The word 'gift' deserves special attention. In Old English, 'gift' existed but could mean either 'a present' or 'a payment for a wife' (bride-price). The modern sense is reinforced by Old Norse 'gift' (a gift, good luck). In some Germanic languages, cognate words took darker paths: German 'Gift' means 'poison' — a development that linguists explain through the intermediate sense of 'something administered' or 'a dose,' showing how the notion of 'something given' can shade into something forced upon a recipient.
The compound 'forgive' (Old English 'forgiefan') originally meant 'to give completely, to give up' — the 'for-' prefix intensified the meaning. The semantic development to 'pardon' or 'remit a debt' came through the idea of giving up one's right to retribution or repayment. This calques the Latin 'perdonare' (to give thoroughly, to pardon), suggesting the concept may have been influenced by Christian Latin usage during the conversion period.
Phonologically, the development from Old English 'giefan' (/jiː.e.vɑn/) to Modern English 'give' (/ɡɪv/) involved the Norse-influenced retention of /ɡ/, the loss of the infinitive ending, and the shortening of the vowel in a frequently used monosyllable. The past tense 'gave' (from ME 'gaf,' 'gave') shows the regular strong verb ablaut pattern, with the vowel alternation that characterized this class of Germanic strong verbs.
Modern Usage
In modern usage, 'give' is extraordinarily productive in phrasal combinations and idiomatic expressions: 'give up' (surrender), 'give in' (yield), 'give out' (distribute or fail), 'give away' (donate or reveal), 'give off' (emit), and 'give back' (return). The construction 'give' + indirect object + direct object ('give me the book') represents one of the fundamental ditransitive patterns of English syntax and has been the subject of extensive linguistic research.
The word ranks among the most common verbs in English and, like other core vocabulary items, has resisted regularization of its past tense. Speakers still say 'gave' rather than the hypothetical regular form 'gived,' and 'given' rather than 'gived' as a past participle — testimony to the protective power of high frequency against analogical leveling.