Purple Level

Lesson Five — extended practice with idioms

Take

take / took / taken / taking

take a break = rest for a short time.

I’m going to take a 15-minute break.

take after = to be similar to another person.

She takes after her mother. They have the same personality and the same manners.

take care = see you later; be in good health.

Okay, take care. I’ll see you later.

take down = write.

You should take down her phone number and give her a call.

take down = to defeat in a fight; to bring a person or an organization from a high position to a low position.

Don’t mess with me, man. I’ll take you down!

take (one) for = to believe something, possibly in error. to make a mistake.

Whoops! I took him for a police officer, but he’s just a security guard.

take from = learn from; to benefit with education.

What did the students take from the experience of going on a two-day camping trip?

take in = see; visit.

Sheila and Briana plan to take in a few shows when they go to Las Vegas next month.

take it easy = relax.

You need to take it easy this weekend. Stay home and get some rest.

take (it) hard = to feel emotional pain upon learning bad news.

When Ron found out that his sister died, he took the news really hard.

The whole family took it really hard when their grandmother died.

take it out on = to punish someone; to exercise one’s anger on another person.

Laura shouldn’t have taken it out on the mail carrier. It wasn’t his fault that he was late yesterday.

take off = leave; go away.

I’d better take off and get home. It’s almost midnight.

take off = succeed

Ahmed’s restaurant business is starting to take off, so he’s going to hire more employees.

take on = to agree to more responsibility or work.

He’s decided to take on another job to help pay the bills.

take out = food that you buy from a restaurant and bring home.

Let’s stop at that Chinese take-out place and get some Kung Pao chicken.

It’s much easier to take food out than to prepare yourself, but it’s also more expensive.

take that or take this = "This is punishment for you." (use this expression when you want to cause harm to another person; often used in jest.)

Take this, jerk! (a man hits another man in the face.)

take to = to learn to like someone or something.

Lindsey has finally taken to her new teacher. At first, she didn’t like him, but now she does.

take up = to learn how to do something, a sport or an activity.

In order to lose some weight, Daniel decided to take up jogging.

Next: Lesson Six