take a dive

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English

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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take a dive (third-person singular simple present takes a dive, present participle taking a dive, simple past took a dive, past participle taken a dive)

  1. To decline rapidly.
    • 2008 December 1, John Curran, “The Recession Is Made Official — and Stocks Take a Dive”, in Time[1]:
      Other broad market gauges took even steeper dives, with the Standard & Poor's 500, which includes financial stocks, falling 9.93%.
  2. (idiomatic, boxing) To feign a knockout in order to lose intentionally.
    • 1950, Jules Archer, I Sell What I Write, page 44:
      I decided there could be a nice bit of irony in a situation where a boxer, with a crown his for the taking, deliberately takes a dive to get revenge on the man he hates, who is betting everything on the boxer's victory.
    • 2012, Gary Lovisi, “Boxing, Babes & Bullets”, in Battling Boxing Stories, Wildside Press LLC, →ISBN, page 165:
      "You got a fight next weekend. You take a dive in the fourth round, understand?"
    • 2015 December 31, Vadim Pushkin, “Povetkin Promoter Praises Fury, Rejects Klitschko Dive Claim”, in Boxing Scene[2], retrieved 2016-08-03:
      The businessman turned promoter rejected some of overseas rumors going around that Klitschko bet a large portion of funds on himself and then took a dive to collect.
  3. (idiomatic) To lose or fail intentionally.

Synonyms

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  • throw (to intentionally lose a game)