TAKE Phrasal Verbs

to take after

1. to resemble in appearance and/or personality. Example: She takes after her father. – Se parece a su padre.

to take away

1. to remove something/someone. Example: Her illness took away her childhood.
2. to confiscate. Example: When the child doesn’t behave, his mother takes away his games.

to take down

1. to make a written note. Example: The police is taking down the information. – La policia está apuntando la información.
2. to remove something. Example: She took down his photo from the wall. – Ella quitó su foto de la pared.
   

to take in

1. to give a home to someone or something homeless. Example: My sister can’t refuse a homeless animal: she takes them all in.
2. to sew a piece of clothing to make it smaller because it was too big. Example: My cousin lost 30 pounds and now needs all of his clothes taken in.
3. understand difficult information. Example: After the loss of her entire family in the earthquake, the woman is still trying to take it all in.

to take off

1. to remove something. Example: We didn’t order shrimp. Could you please take them off my bill?
2. to leave (often in a hurry). Example: The police took off in a hurry.
3. to leave the ground (plane). Example: The plane was supposed to take off at seven.
4. to suddenly increase (in sales), to become successful. Example: I don’t know what happened, but business just took off this year!

to take on

1. to accept responsibility of a project. Example: I didn’t mean to take on so much work. It just happened.
2. to hire a new employee. Example: She’s love to be taken on by that company.

to take out

1. to take someone on a date. Example: I don’t remember the last time my husband took me out.
2. to remove. Example: I don’t like taking out the trash.
3. to apply for and get something such as a mortgage, insurance, loan, etc.. Example: I need to take out a loan to pay for my medical expenses.

to take over

1. to take control. Example: My shift ends at 6 o’clock. Sammy is going to take over for me then.
2. to conquer. Example: Some people believe that aliens are going to take over the world.

to take something/someone back

1. to return something/someone to its original place. Example: Can you take me back home later?
2. to forcefully take something/someone from someone when you were the original possessor. Example: The little girl took back her doll from the boy.
3. to admit what you said was incorrect. Example: I take back what I said. I meant to say that the house was too small.

to take something out on something/someone

1. to treat someone unpleasantly when they are not at fault. Example: I sometimes take my anger out on my husband even though he hasn’t done a thing wrong.

to take up

1. to begin a new activity. Example: I’m thinking of taking up playing bingo. – Estoy pensando en empezar a jugar bingo.
2. to occupy space/time. Example: My sofa takes up too much space in my new apartment. – Mi sofa ocupa demasiado espacio en mi apartamento nuevo.
3. to agree to an offer/bet – Example: “How does $2,000 sound for your old car?” “Sounds good. I’ll take you up on that.”
4. to remove a document – Example: The teacher always takes up homework at the beginning of class.