To give up, to avoid further punishment when facing certain defeat.
Credit: Harry Doc Brain via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0]
Etymology
This little expression derives from boxing. When a boxer is suffering a beating and his corner wants to stop the fight they literally throw in the towel to indicate their conceding of the fight. It was basically a way to surrender. This citation seems to have appeared for the first time in an American newspaper The Kalgoorlie Western Argus in July 1900 in its original boxing context. It was very soon after that the phrase began to be used in a figurative sense, to indicate giving up in non-boxing contexts. A recording of the phrase was found in the Sunday Times newspaper in August 1903 : “Teetotal Smith, our great mayor goes about looking much depressed since the poll, and is, I suspect half inclined to throw in the towel”.
«Throwing in the towel» was preceded by throwing in the sponge. Sponges were a common ringside accessory as early as the 18th century. Throwing in the sponge was then the preferred method of conceding defeat. This is recorded in the mid-19th century, in The Slang Dictionary, 1860. Today people use this idiomatic expression as a recipe of life: «do not throw in the towel, use it to wipe out the sweat off your face.»
Wrong translation
> Jeter la serviette
Correct French idiom
> Jeter l’éponge