Other forms: forgiven, forgives, forgiving, forgave
To forgive somebody is to stop being angry at them for what they did. Forgive me, she forgave him, I will never forgive myself. It is irregular: forgive, forgave, forgiven.
The grammar is worth care. You forgive a person, and you forgive a person for something: forgive me for being late. You can also forgive the thing itself — forgive the mess — which is a polite formula rather than an act of grace. There is a second, financial sense that surprises learners: to forgive a debt is to cancel it, which is the older meaning and still standard in banking. And forgive me is one of the standard softeners before a direct question.
1verbforgiveTo stop feeling angry at somebody for what they did.
“She forgave him long before he apologised.”
2verbcancelTo cancel a debt.
“Part of the loan was forgiven after five years.”
3verbpoliteUsed as a polite formula before saying something direct.
“Forgive me, but that is not what you said last week.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
forgive is a way of letting go of anger.
Also accepted in games: pardon
Old English forgiefan is for- plus giefan, to give — to give away, to give up. The same pattern shows up across Europe: German vergeben, French pardonner, Latin perdonare, all of them for-give with different halves. Forgiveness is, everywhere, a giving up of something you were owed.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰebʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*fragebaną — to give away; give up; release; forgive
Proto-West Germanic
*frageban
Old English
forġiefan — to forgive, to give
Middle English
foryiven
English, today
forgive
Alteration (due to give) of Middle English foryiven, forȝiven, from Old English forġiefan (“to forgive, to give”), from Proto-West Germanic frageban, from Proto-Germanic fragebaną (“to give away; give up; release; forgive”), equivalent to for- + give (etymologically for- + yive). Cognate with Scots forgeve, forgif, forgie (“to forgive”), West Frisian ferjaan (“to forgive”), Dutch vergeven (“to forgive”), German vergeben (“to forgive”), Icelandic fyrirgefa (“to forgive”), Yiddish פֿאַרגעבן (“to forgive”)
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA