take – English verb conjugation

Nominal Forms

Infinitive: to take on
Participle: taken on
Gerund: taking on

Cognates

-

Indicative

Subjunctive

Conditional

Imperative

you	take on
we	Let's take on
you	take on

Indicative

Conditional

Synonyms & Antonyms

Synonyms

to receive or accept something

receive

to remove

remove

to kill

cack, duppy, liquidate, terminate, kill

to subtract

subtract

to have sex with

copulate with, tup

to grasp with the hands

grasp

capture prey

capture, catch, hook, snare

be hit

catch, get

take

fang, receive

to put to death; to extinguish life.

annihilate, bag, bereave of life, blight, bring down, bury, cack, croak, crush, dash, deactivate, dead, demolish, destroy, dispatch, dispose of, do, do in, dust, eliminate, end, eradicate, exterminate, finish, finish off, flatten, lay waste to, make a way with, mortify, neutralize, obliterate, off, pay off, pick off, polish off, punch someone's ticket, put an end to, put down, put out of one's misery, put six feet under, put to sleep, ravage, rub out, ruin, scotch, scupper, scuttle, send to eternity, send to hell, send to the grave, send to the great beyond, send to the next life, smash, smite, snuff, squash, stiff, take care of, take down, take out, terminate, terminate with extreme prejudice, kill, torpedo, waste, wipe out, wreck

to actively and intentionally gain possession or control

appropriate, bag, catch, expropriate, grab, grasp, grip, help oneself, hook, impropriate, make free with, nab, nim, pocket, sack, seize

to gain possession of something

accept, acquire, attain, cop, enlist, gain, garner, get, get hold of, get one's hands on, land, lay hands on, lay hold of, obtain, procure, receive, score, secure, snag, win

to make smaller by removing something

abate, bate, knock off, remove, subduct, subtract, take away, take off

to produce a total by taking one number away from another

subtract, take away

to hold firmly, particularly with the hand

begrasp, begrip, belock, clasp, clench, clinch, cling, clutch, enclasp, fang, fondle, glaum, grab, grabble, grasp, grip, hang on, hold, hold on, hold tight, nim, seize, stranglehold

acquire

obtain, get, secure, procure, win

seize

grasp, catch, capture

embrace

grasp, clasp, grip, accept, adopt

receive

accept, admit

select

choose, pick, elect

subtract

deduct

carry

convey, transfer

Antonyms

to move, shift, provide something abstract or concrete to someone or something or somewhere

receive, give

to actively and intentionally gain possession or control

give, return

to give something back to its original holder or owner

return

to receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it

buy, lend, return, borrow

seize

release, free, liberate, loose

embrace

reject, release, shun, ignore

Additional Information

Phrasal Verbs

Etymology

1. late O.E. tacan, from a N.Gmc. source (e.g. O.N. taka "take, grasp, lay hold," past tense tok, pp. tekinn; Swed. ta, pp. tagit), from P.Gmc. *tækanan (cf. M.L.G. tacken, M.Du. taken, Goth. tekan "to touch"), of uncertain origin, perhaps originally meaning "to touch." Gradually replaced M.E. nimen as the verb for "to take," from O.E. niman, from the usual W.Gmc. *nem- root (cf. Ger. nehmen, Du. nemen), also of unknown origin. OED calls it "one of the elemental words of the language;" take up alone has 55 varieties of meaning in that dictionary. Basic sense is "to lay hold of," which evolved to "accept, receive" (as in take my advice) c.1200; "absorb" (he can take a punch) c.1200; "to choose, select" (take the long way home) c.1275; "to make, obtain" (take a shower) 1375; "to become affected by" (take sick) c.1300. Take five is 1929, from the approximate time it takes to smoke a cigarette. Take it easy first recorded 1880; take the plunge "act decisively" is from 1876; take the rap "accept (undeserved) punishment" is from 1930. Phrase take it or leave it is recorded from 1897.
2. From Middle English taken (“to take, lay hold of, grasp, strike”), from Old English tacan (“to grasp, touch”), probably of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse taka (“to touch, take”), from Proto-Germanic *tēkaną (“to touch”), from pre-Germanic *deh₁g- (“to touch”), possibly a phonetically altered form of Proto-Indo-European *te-th₂g- (“to touch, take”) (see there for details).
3. Gradually displaced native English nim, from Middle English nimen, from Old English niman (“to take”).
4. Cognates
5. Cognate with Scots tak (“to take”), Icelandic and Norwegian Nynorsk taka (“to take”), Norwegian Bokmål ta (“to take”), Swedish ta (“to take”), Danish tage (“to take, seize”), West Frisian take, taakje (“to grab, steal”), Dutch taken (“to take; grasp”), Middle Low German tacken (“to grasp”). English thack may be from the same root. Compare tackle. Despite superficial similarity, unrelated to Proto-Indo-European *tek- (“to take by hand, obtain”), which is instead cognate with English thig (“to beg”). See: Middle English 'taken', Old English 'tacan', Proto-Germanic '*tēkaną', Scots 'tak', Norwegian, nynorsk 'taka', Norwegian 'ta', Swedish 'ta', Danish 'tage', Dutch 'taken'.

Verbs referencing "take"

Scots tak, Norwegian ta, Norwegian, nynorsk ta, Swedish ta, Norwegian, nynorsk taka, Sranan teki, Danish tage, Finnish with old forms teikata.

Sample Sentences