What is "gives way"

Usage examples of "gives way".

Determining, at all events, to sell your life dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting out right and left with arms and legs, and yelling lustily the while, and at last something gives way, and you find your head in the fresh air.

He is admitted accordingly, not without a hint from the recluse that, were he himself out of his priestly weeds, he would care little for his threats of using violence, and that he gives way to him not out of intimidation, but simply to avoid scandal.

If the lid rather than the nails gives way, the whole weight of earth above will pour in on top of you.

But he wants me to go mad, he wants to torture me till my brain gives way.

Nature-nation mysticism gives way to Deity mysticism, and the God within announces itself in terms undreamt of in gross manifestation, with a Light that blinds the sun and a Song that thunders nature and culture into stunned and awestruck silence.

A second case is that of an old soldier, who, when he is requested to conform to the rules of the establishment, gives way to discontent, terminating in fury.

The houses round here won't be collapsing when the ground gives way beneath them, as happens every year in Twelve Seas.

But off to the left, it still looks like the Mediterranean, and eventually it gives way to Devil's Tower type outcroppings rising up out of stony scrubland, and then after that it is just rocks and sand, or sand without the rocks.

Another mile down the road, the cultivated forest gives way to the wild kind, and a military checkpoint bars the road.

The pavement gives way beneath them--and they [are] precipitated into the tomb of Ossaru.

From somewhere beneath the blanket there is a ghastly bursting sound as something gives way.