or cave in, verb (American).—To give way when opposition can no longer be maintained; to break down; to ‘turn up.’ [Derived from the practice of navvies in digging earthworks, when the lower part is undermined until it can no longer sustain the overhanging mass. Murray says all the earliest instances of CAVE IN, in print, are from America, and its literary use appears to have arisen there; but, as the word is given as East Anglian by Forby [1830], and is widely used in Eng. dialects, it is generally conjectured to have reached the U.S. from East Anglia.] The French has barrer; the Spanish acomodarse; and the Fourbesque battere.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS. To knuckle under; knock under; give in; sing small; turn it up; chuck it up; jack up; CLIMB DOWN (q.v.), throw up the sponge; chuck it; go down; go out; cut it; cut the rope (pugilistic), etc.
1855. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), Nature and Human Nature, 55 (BARTLETT). He was a plucky fellow, and warn’t a goin’ to CAVE IN that way.
1862. C. F. BROWNE (‘Artemus Ward’), Artemus Ward: His Book. I kin CAVE IN enny man’s head that, etc.
1869. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Innocents at Home. In the meantime the tropical sun was beating down and threatening to CAVE the top of my head in.
1883. HAWLEY SMART, Hard Lines, ch. xxii. ‘The Russians will CAVE when they find we are in earnest.’
CAVE! intj. (Eton College).—‘Beware!’ A byword among boys out of bounds when a master is in sight. [From the Latin. The modern, ‘beware of the dog’ was rendered cave canem by the Romans.]
