Throw in the Towel

A literal boxing surrender signal, still used today. A fighter's corner team would throw a towel into the ring to stop the fight and protect their boxer from further punishment or a knockout, a gesture documented in print by 1913. It replaced an earlier, near-identical custom: literally throwing a sweat-soaked sponge into the ring, recorded as "throw up the sponge" from 1871. The towel version overtook the sponge version by the early 1900s and quickly spread into everyday figurative use for giving up on anything.