take a dive

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

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

• throw (“to intentionally lose a game”)