give or take

English

Etymology

First use appears c. 1958. See cite below.

Adverb

give or take

1. (informal) Approximately; plus or minus some unknown amount.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:approximately

   He was six feet tall, give or take.

   • 1958, Peter Bryant, Red Alert:

     Estimate Lakenheath twelve thirty hours. Give or take a few minutes, natch.

2. (informal) Approximately; within a certain margin of error.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:approximately

   six months, give or take a few days

   • 2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 22 May 2019:

     Individual episodes are still thrilling and often quite striking, give or take some pitch-black battle scenes. But the gradual ramping up of the plotting that has grown steadily in the past three seasons crossed some invisible Maginot line this year, where the formerly acceptable trade-offs of focus for fun are no longer quite so taken for granted.

Related terms

• give and take

Translations

approximately — see also approximately

• Finnish: likimain (fi), suurinpiirtein
• Galician: máis ou menos
• Greek: πάνω κάτω (el) n (páno káto)
• Hungarian: plusz-mínusz egy/egynéhány, esetleg valamivel​/​valamennyivel több vagy kevesebb
• Polish: z grubsza (pl), mniej więcej (pl)