Garner, Dict. of Modern Amer. Usage, p. 319:
gift, it may be surprising to learn, has acted as a verb since the 16th century. And now it's much on the rise—e.g.: "Her sales price must be measured against your cost, plus any gift tax attributable to the difference between the value of the property when gifted and your cost." ... Though this usage is old, it is not now standard.  [emph. added] ... Twenty years ago contact was objected to as a verb ... See NOUNS AS VERBS.
Gift may end up in the same class. A perceived difference, however, is that we already have a perfectly good verb (give) and even a secondary verb for formal contexts (donate). The objection to contact was only that it made people uncomfortable, but there was no existing equivalent—get in touch with being much more cumbersome. So cautious writers may prefer to keep gift as a noun only. One is accustomed to thinking of gifted children, but not of gifted stock.

Burchfield, ed., New Fowler's Modern Engl. Usage, 3rd ed., p. 330:
gift (verb). Despite its antiquity (first recorded in the 16c.) and its frequent use, esp. by Scottish writers, since then, it has fallen out of favour among standard speakers in England, and is best avoided [emph. added]. On the other hand, gifted ppl adj. 'talented' (a gifted violinist) is standard. See also FREE GIFT.


NOAD:
gift - ... (v.) [trans.] give (something) as a gift, esp. formally or as a donation or bequest: the company gifted 2,999 shares to a charity.
• present (someone) with a gift or gifts: the director gifted her with a heart-shaped brooch. • (gift someone with) endow with (something): she was gifted with a powerful clairvoyance.

Some people do use 'to gift,' but many people consider it wrong or unattractive, and as Garner points out, it's definitely unnecessary.

Of the three senses listed in NOAD, only the third, to be gifted with sth. in the sense of having a talent for something, is really widely accepted, in my judgment. I could support an entry in that form.

An entry for to gift alone, though, really shouldn't be added without a usage note in italics, like, say, 'often considered nonstandard.'

I disagree with Garner's view of the verbal use of "gift"
being superfluous as completely replaceable or equal with "to give".

People "give" a lot of things without them ever being meant as "gifts"!

And "to give voluntarily and unconditionally",
to me seems at least as cumbersome as "to get in touch with"...

As to "donate", - this word has definitely a slightly
different connotation than "to give something as a gift".
As you pointed out yourself, it is much more formal,
and would sound pretty odd to my ears, if used interpersonally. (- "donate" to an organization, or
a certain group of people - ok, but to a friend??? -)



Still, I see the point in the documentation you cited:
That "Though its usage is old, it is not now standard" 
and that it is likely to be considered "wrong or unattractive"


That alone might be reason enough to leave it out of a bilingual dictionary. - I agree.

Why does LEO need to protect people from the verbal use of "gift", yet the OALD and AHD don't?

I agree that it is probably best to mark the word in some way to keep beginners from thinking that "to gift" is the best translation for "schenken". There are many users of LEO, however, who aren't beginners, and if they come across "gift" used as a verb and want to look it up, why shouldn't they find it in LEO? It would be especially helpful to them to see that it is often considered nonstandard. Otherwise they might add it to their repertoire.

I think "to gift" is standard AE usage when talking about tax laws such as inheritance taxes. But using it under normal circumstances between 2 people sounds odd to me. It's not that the word sounds particularly formal, it just has different, further connotations than "to give as a gift". The example given in NOAD: the director gifted her with a heart-shaped brooch., also sounds strange to my ears. It leads me to think that the brooch was perhaps a tax write-off for the director or something.

I would definitely consider "to gift" as a verb, especially in this form, 100% wrong.

@3 - that's a bit of a moot point, because anyone advanced will already know the noun "gift" and quite easily be able to work out any possible, apparent use of this as a verb.

I'm against this - unless it is marked American, rare or something of that ilk.

New Shorter OED:

gift /gIft/ v.t.L16. [f. the n.]
1 Endow or provide with a gift or gifts; endow or present with as a gift. L16.
2 Bestow as a gift (foll. by to); give away. E17.
1 P. G. WODEHOUSE She was gifted with a sort of second sight.
Daily Telegraph You can..be gifted up to £90,000 before you become liable to tax.
2 J. C. LEES The Regent Murray gifted all the Church Property to Lord Sempill.

A widow who gifted her country estate to the local council 25 years ago has been told she can have it backhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/mar/11...

Harris once said that his time on the campaign trail with Tony Blair in 1997 gifted him invaluable material; that it 'provided a pool of issues and ideashttp://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/sep/2...

Hendry Thomas seemed to believe Valencia was still a Wigan player, judging by the dreadful pass which gifted him the first shooting opportunity of the night. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/3...

This is not quite as common in BE - I heard a BE speaker on the radio use it yesterday and was surprised enough to make a mental note of it. But it does exist, so shouldn't be labelled AE, and is definitely worth an entry.

In BE I'd say it is most often used more figuratively, to mean that someone gained something valuable without having to make any effort - much to their delight. The "giver" often does so accidentally.

Oh, and the original poster didn't read some of those dictionary definitions very carefully. Here they are (and I didn't read this before my comment above!):

OALD: verb (BrE) (used especially in journalism) to give sth to sb without their having to make any effort to get it: [vnn] They gifted their opponents a goal. [vn] They gifted a goal to their opponents. http://www.oup.com/oald-bin/web_getald7index1a.pl

Main Entry: 2gift
Function: transitive verb
Date: circa 1550
1 : to endow with some power, quality, or attribute
2 : present
— gift·ee \ˌgif-ˈtē\ noun http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gift

An idea would be to mark it past tense only, or present tense extremely rare. No one has come up with a valid example of present tense usage yet.

The lack of present tense examples is due to the fact that printed material is usually in the past tense. Like any other verb, "gift" can be used in any tense you like.

Not that this really requires evidence, but here you go:

Morkel drops short to Cook, gifting him the chance to shift on to his back foot and pull to deep mid-wicket from outside off stump for four.http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/dec/27/s...

Dolly Parton sings a duet and Tom Waits gifts her a song, http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/feb/06/p...

 Paula kindly gifts her with a star-shaped ring to match. "How sweet you are" says Simon "publicising your new jewellery line so selflessly!" http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/...

Blooming 'eck, then mark this as modern then ;P

New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd edition (revised), 2005:
gift verb [with obj.] give (something) as a gift, especially formally or as a donation or bequest: the company gifted 2,999 shares to a charity.
present (someone) with a gift or gifts: the queen gifted him with a heart-shaped brooch.
(gift someone with) endow with (something): man is gifted with a moral sense.
informal inadvertently allow (an opponent) to have something: [with two objs] the goalkeeper gifted Liverpool their last-minute winner.

verb (gifted, gifting) formal to give something as a present to someone.
http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/feat...



5.23.1 This relief is intended to act as an incentive for donors to gift these investments to charity.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/guidance-not...

value of shares, securities, land gifted to charity
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/worksheets/2008/SA150.pdf

If you plan to will your home to your children, it may make sense to gift your property to them long in advance of the event of your death.
http://www.hansonwealth.co.uk/Articles/Inheri...

HARTWELL House near Aylesbury will be protected and conserved for the nation for ever after it was gifted to the National Trust.
http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/Historic-Ha...

AU and NZ sources:

The Hauraki Gulf island of Rotoroa has been gifted to the people of Auckland by its wealthy owners.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/gulf-island-g...

The UQ Art Museum is also the custodian of the Stuartholme-Behan Collection of Australian Art (1976), initially developed by Dr Norman Behan and gifted to the Stuartholme School.
http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au:81/about-the-c...

I see that in NODE we have the "queen" with a small "q" instead of the "director" doling out the brooches;-). Anyway, to business:

Like wupper, I'm certainly familiar with "to gift" in the context of taxation. In the U.K., it's a recognised term used by the Inland Revenue (hmrc). I'm also familiar with it in the sense of giving a building/art work/large sum of money etc. to some organisation/the nation etc.

I'm mystified by Burchfield's it has fallen out of favour among standard speakers in England. Maybe the latest edition (1998?) came out before "to give" came into fashion again. It only became part of my vocabularly in the last, say, 10 years.

@CM2DD: In BE I'd say it is most often used more figuratively, to mean that someone gained something valuable without having to make any effort - much to their delight. The "giver" often does so accidentally. I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there. On the contrary, I'd have said that more Brits would be familiar with "to gift" in the sense used in, say, the notes on filling in an income tax return or as used when the National Trust receives a gift or bequest of a property, i.e. it's most often used in senses 1 and 2 of Shorter OED or NODE. I wasn't even aware that it could be used in the informal sense of giving something away (accidentally) until I read this thread, but I don't read the sports pages much I must admit.

I think this is definitely worth an entry, but I'm stumped as to suitable usage tags given that "to gift" is used both in a fairly formal register and informally, "especially in journalism" with a slightly different meaning from the formal version. I certainly wouldn't endorse 'often considered nonstandard.' though, hm.

Oh, Anne. Here I was just thinking, oh, good, Anne is here, she will stand up for truth and decency -- and you use it? Gnarrr ...

All I can say is that all those examples sound really, really bad to me, except for 'man is gifted with a moral sense,' which is more natural than the NOAD's version with clairvoyance, though more sexist.

What, for heaven's sake, is wrong with 'donate' for the tax sense? 'Make a donation of'? 'Give as a donation'?

And for the undeserved sense, whatever happened to 'hand so. on a silver platter'?

I still think Garner and Burchfield are right to note that it has not (in our memory) been traditionally considered standard, even though you're probably also right to note that its use has mushroomed in the very recent past. It obviously doesn't bother the Guardian, which I like for other reasons, but careful proofreading has never been its forte, has it? I would be curious whether the Times or Telegraph style guides have anything to say about it, or other BE sources on usage.