Yive

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An archaic verb meaning to hand something over to another person or to bestow a gift upon them
2. An obsolete form of the verb give, used in older English to mean transferring something to someone
3. Old-fashioned verb signifying the act of handing over, granting, or bestowing something on another

Etymology: "Yive" is an archaic English form of "give," surviving from Middle English, when the word was spelled "yiven." The spelling reflects the older pronunciation: the initial "y" was a consonant sound that gradually disappeared from the standard word over the following centuries, leaving "give" as the everyday form. "Yive" is therefore a doublet of "give" that stayed in use mostly in older texts and dialect rather than becoming the standard spelling. The word goes back to Old English "ġiefan," which descended from the Proto-Germanic root "gebanąz," the same root that gave Old Norse its own form of the verb. English thus has two parallel lines for this word: the native Old English form that became "give," and a later borrowing from Old Norse that also produced "give" in English, which is why the two sources sit so close together in the family tree. "Yive" preserves a middle stage of the older English spelling and sound.