Give way means to let others go first, whether it's another car or a pedestrian, or to yield to pressure and demands. The second meaning is to break or collapse under a load. People use it for floors, bridges, ice and shelves.
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give way (to + traffic/pedestrians); give way to + pressure/demands; floor/bridge/ice + gave way
- At this junction you have to give way to cars coming from the right.
- After weeks of protests, the council gave way and kept the library open.
- The old wooden floor gave way under the weight of the piano.
What changed
First versionDrivers should give the way to people on a zebra crossing.
RevisionDrivers should give way to people on a zebra crossing.
It's easy to treat way here as an ordinary noun that needs an article, as in show the way or lose your way. But give way is a fixed phrase, and it has no article. The goes; nothing else changes.
In the sense of yielding to pressure, give way is close to give in: The council gave in to the protesters. But for objects that break under weight, only give way works: The shelf gave way. And on American road signs, you'll see YIELD instead of GIVE WAY.
Your turn
At a roundabout, you must ___ to cars that are already going round it.
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give way — This is about traffic: you let the cars already going round go first, and that's give way. Give in can also mean to yield, but in the sense of surrendering or stopping arguing, and it isn't used for traffic rules.
Describe a time something couldn't take the weight: a shelf, a chair, a branch, a roof. Use give way and name the cause.
The shelf in our kitchen gave way because we had put too many heavy cookbooks on it.
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