throw up one's hands
throw up (one's) hands
To submit or give up. I'm ready to throw up my hands after trying to train this unruly puppy. Don't just throw up your hands—keep trying.
throw up one's hands
Indicate or express utter hopelessness. For example, Jim was getting nowhere so he threw up his hands and abandoned the argument. This idiom alludes to a traditional gesture for giving up.
throw up one's hands, to
To express despair, frustration, or exasperation. Although this gesture must be very old indeed, the expression appeared in print only from the late nineteenth century. George M. Fenn used it in The Double Knot (1890): “The woman threw up her hands and reeled.”