Other forms: took, taken, taking, takes
Take is what your hand does when you reach out and something becomes yours. You take a book off the shelf, take the last biscuit, take a child's hand at the kerb.
Take is one of the busiest verbs in English, and most of what it does has nothing to do with hands. It takes two hours; you take the bus, take a photo, take a shower, take a seat, take an exam, take a tablet with water. It is irregular — take, took, taken — and that middle form catches everyone out. The pair to watch is take and bring: you take things away from where you are and bring them towards it, so you take a bottle to a party and bring the empties home. There is a noun as well — your take on something is your view of it, and on a film set a take is one attempt at a scene.
1verbtakeTo reach out and get hold of something with your hands.~2%
“Take the box from the top shelf and put it on the table.”
2verbneedTo need a particular amount of time, effort or material.~2%
“It takes an hour to drive to the airport, so we should leave now.”
3verbtravelTo travel somewhere by a particular route or means of transport.~2%
“We take the number 9 bus to the market every Saturday.”
4verbcarryTo carry or lead someone or something to another place.~2%
“Can you take these plates through to the kitchen?”
5verbswallowTo swallow food, drink or medicine.~2%
“Take one tablet with water before bed.”
6verbnamedTo do the thing named by the noun that follows: a shower, a photo, a break.~86%
“I'm going to take a shower and then take a look at your car.”
7nounviewA person's own view of something.~2%
“What's your take on the new manager?”
8nounfilmedOne filmed attempt at a scene.~2%
“They got it right on the fourth take.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 21 sentences found in the wild and placed 14 of them on a sense (7 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Take is a Viking word. Old English already had niman for this job, but Norse settlers brought taka, to touch, to take, and English kept the newcomer and let its own word go; nim survives only in very old books. Further back, Proto-Germanic tekana meant simply to touch — so to take was first just to lay a hand on something.
Proto-Indo-European
*teh₂g- — to touch, take
Proto-Germanic
*tēkaną — to touch
Proto-West Germanic
*takan — to take; grasp, touch
Old Norse
taka — to touch, take
Old English
tacan — to grasp, touch
Middle English
taken — to take, lay hold of, grasp, strike
English, today
take
From Middle English taken (“to take, lay hold of, grasp, strike”), from Old English tacan (“to grasp, touch”), probably of gmq origin, from Old Norse taka (“to touch, take”). Alternatively, inherited from Proto-West Germanic takan (“to take; grasp, touch”). Both from Proto-Germanic tēkaną (“to touch”), from pre-Germanic deh₁g- (“to touch”), possibly a phonetically altered form of Proto-Indo-European teh₂g- (“to touch, take”) (see there for details). Gradually displaced native nim, from nimen, from Old English niman (“to take”). Cognates
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA