what gives

短语

发音

US

释义与例句

phr.
  1. 1.

    What is wrong? Why is this happening?

    非正式

    Not even thirty minutes after leaving the shower, my head starts itching. What gives?

  2. 2.

    What is happening? What is going on?

    非正式

    What gives with you and Martha?

  3. 3.

    How are you?

    非正式

词源

First attested in 1940, in John O'Hara's novel Pal Joey. The term is considered by the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Second Edition (2013) and several other references to be a calque of German “was gibt's?” and/or a Yiddish equivalent. Brian Joseph disputes this, and speculates that despite extremely late attestation, it and the German was gibt's may "allow[] for a reconstruction of a Proto-West-Germanic existential use of 'give', which survives marginally into present usage."

来源：wiktionary