throw up the sponge

From a custom of the boxing ring, the person employed to sponge a pugilist between rounds throwing his sponge in the air in token of defeat.

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throw up the sponge (third-person singular simple present throws up the sponge, present participle throwing up the sponge, simple past threw up the sponge, past participle thrown up the sponge)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic, slang, archaic) To give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; to throw in the towel.
   • 1870, James Russell Lowell, “Lessing”, in Among My Books, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 330:

     But he was too brave a man to throw up the sponge to fate, and had work to do yet.

   • 1958 July, R. K. Kirkland, “Into the Mountains on the Festiniog Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 450:

     At a time when official railway operators throw up the sponge for much less reason, it seems that only voluntary enthusiasm would ever contemplate the task at all.