Search results
Indian giver" is a pejorative expression used to describe a person who gives a "gift" and later wants it back or who expects something of equivalent worth in return for the item. [1] It is based on cultural misunderstandings that took place between the early European colonists and the Indigenous people with whom they traded. [ 2 ]
Indian giver derives from the alleged practise of American Indians of taking back gifts from white settlers. It is more likely that the settlers wrongly interpreted the Indians’ loans to them as gifts. This term, which is certainly American, may have been coined to denigrate of the native race. Historians would now agree that, where deceit ...
Sep 2, 2013 · "Indian Giver, Says Ex-Wife, Of Hubby" declared a 1919 headline in the Detroit Free-Press article about a husband who demanded his wife return some gifts during a divorce proceeding. The phrase ...
An Indian giver is someone who gives a gift and later takes it back or expects something in return. This idiomatic phrase originated from cultural misunderstandings between settlers and Native Americans in the 18th century. Despite the understood history behind the expression, it is commonly misused and wrongly assumed to be derogatory towards ...
- English Teacher
"Indian Giver, Says Ex-Wife, Of Hubby" declared a 1919 headline in the Detroit Free-Press article about a husband who demanded his wife return some gifts during a divorce proceeding. The phrase ...
Nov 26, 2015 · The Indian giver (or the original one, at any rate) understood a cardinal property of the gift: Whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept. Or, if it is kept ...
Indian giver: [noun] a person who gives something to another and then takes it back or expects an equivalent in return.
