give and take

Mutual concessions; a fair exchange. Used as a noun, this expression dates from the eighteenth century. (The verbal form, to give and take, dates from the early 1500s.) One writer believes the phrase originated in British racing and denoted a prize for a race in which larger horses car- ried more weight and smaller ones less than the standard. “Give and take is fair in all nations,” wrote Fannie Burney in Evelina (1778), echoed in T. C. Haliburton’s Wise Saws (1843): “Give and take, live and let live, that’s the word.” See also LIVE AND LET LIVE.