If you bring someone or something with you when you come to a place, you have them with you.
The past tense and -ed participle of bring is brought.
If you ask someone to bring you something, you are asking them to carry or move it to the place where you are.
If you take someone or something to a place, you carry or drive them there. The past tense form of take is took. The -ed participle is taken.
If you take someone or something with you when you go to a place, you have them with you.
If you fetch something, you go to the place where it is and return with it.
Carry and take are usually used to say that someone moves a person or thing from one place to another. When you use carry, you are showing that the person or thing is quite heavy.
You can also say that a ship, train, or lorry is carrying goods of a particular kind. Similarly you can say that a plane, ship, train, or bus is carrying passengers.
Take can be used in a similar way, but only if you say where someone or something is being taken to. You can say, for example, 'The ship was taking crude oil to Rotterdam', but you can't just say 'The ship was taking crude oil'.
You can say that a smaller vehicle such as a car takes you somewhere.
Be Careful!
Don't say that a small vehicle 'carries' you somewhere.
Have and take are both commonly used with nouns as their objects to indicate that someone performs an action or takes part in an activity. With some nouns, you can use either have or take with the same meaning. For example, you can say 'Have a look at this' or 'Take a look at this'. Similarly, you can say 'We have our holidays in August' or 'We take our holidays in August'.
There is often a difference between British and American usage. For example, British speakers usually say 'He had a bath', while American speakers say 'He took a bath'.
When talking about some activities, American speakers often use take. For example, they say 'He took a walk' or 'She took a nap'. British speakers would say 'He went for a walk' or 'She had a nap'.
Take is one of the commonest verbs in English. It is used in many different ways. Its other forms are takes, taking, took, taken.
Most commonly, take is used with a noun that refers to an action.
If you take something from one place to another, you carry it there.
Be Careful!
Don't confuse take with bring or fetch.
When someone completes an exam or test, you say that they take the exam or test.
If something takes a certain amount of time, you need that amount of time in order to do it.
Imperative |
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take |
take |
Noun | 1. | take - the income or profit arising from such transactions as the sale of land or other property; "the average return was about 5%" income - the financial gain (earned or unearned) accruing over a given period of time economic rent, rent - the return derived from cultivated land in excess of that derived from the poorest land cultivated under similar conditions payback - financial return or reward (especially returns equal to the initial investment) |
2. | take - the act of photographing a scene or part of a scene without interruption retake - a shot or scene that is photographed again | |
Verb | 1. | take - carry out; "take action"; "take steps"; "take vengeance" |
2. | take - require (time or space); "It took three hours to get to work this morning"; "This event occupied a very short time" deplete, use up, wipe out, eat up, exhaust, run through, eat, consume - use up (resources or materials); "this car consumes a lot of gas"; "We exhausted our savings"; "They run through 20 bottles of wine a week" be - spend or use time; "I may be an hour" | |
3. | take - take somebody somewhere; "We lead him to our chief"; "can you take me to the main entrance?"; "He conducted us to the palace" beacon - guide with a beacon hand - guide or conduct or usher somewhere; "hand the elderly lady into the taxi" misguide, mislead, lead astray, misdirect - lead someone in the wrong direction or give someone wrong directions; "The pedestrian misdirected the out-of-town driver" | |
4. | take - get into one's hands, take physically; "Take a cookie!"; "Can you take this bag, please" clutch, prehend, seize - take hold of; grab; "The sales clerk quickly seized the money on the counter"; "She clutched her purse"; "The mother seized her child by the arm"; "Birds of prey often seize small mammals" seize - take or capture by force; "The terrorists seized the politicians"; "The rebels threaten to seize civilian hostages" lift out, scoop, scoop up, scoop out, take up - take out or up with or as if with a scoop; "scoop the sugar out of the container" bear away, bear off, carry away, take away, carry off - remove from a certain place, environment, or mental or emotional state; transport into a new location or state; "Their dreams carried the Romantics away into distant lands"; "The car carried us off to the meeting"; "I'll take you away on a holiday"; "I got carried away when I saw the dead man and I started to cry" discerp, dismember, take apart - divide into pieces; "our department was dismembered when our funding dried up"; "The Empire was discerped after the war" take in - visit for entertainment; "take in the sights" | |
5. | ![]() change - undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature; "She changed completely as she grew older"; "The weather changed last night" re-assume - take on again, as after a time lapse; "He re-assumed his old behavior" | |
6. | take - interpret something in a certain way; convey a particular meaning or impression; "I read this address as a satire"; "How should I take this message?"; "You can't take credit for this!" read - to hear and understand; "I read you loud and clear!" construe, interpret, see - make sense of; assign a meaning to; "What message do you see in this letter?"; "How do you interpret his behavior?" misinterpret, misread - interpret wrongly; "I misread Hamlet all my life!" read - interpret the significance of, as of palms, tea leaves, intestines, the sky; also of human behavior; "She read the sky and predicted rain"; "I can't read his strange behavior"; "The fortune teller read his fate in the crystal ball" | |
7. | take - take something or somebody with oneself somewhere; "Bring me the box from the other room"; "Take these letters to the boss"; "This brings me to the main point" fetch, bring, get, convey - go or come after and bring or take back; "Get me those books over there, please"; "Could you bring the wine?"; "The dog fetched the hat" fetch - take away or remove; "The devil will fetch you!" bring - be accompanied by; "Can I bring my cousin to the dinner?" carry, transport - move while supporting, either in a vehicle or in one's hands or on one's body; "You must carry your camping gear"; "carry the suitcases to the car"; "This train is carrying nuclear waste"; "These pipes carry waste water into the river" transit - cause or enable to pass through; "The canal will transit hundreds of ships every day" ferry - transport from one place to another tube - convey in a tube; "inside Paris, they used to tube mail" whisk - move somewhere quickly; "The President was whisked away in his limo" channel, transmit, carry, impart, conduct, convey - transmit or serve as the medium for transmission; "Sound carries well over water"; "The airwaves carry the sound"; "Many metals conduct heat" land - bring ashore; "The drug smugglers landed the heroin on the beach of the island" | |
8. | take - take into one's possession; "We are taking an orphan from Romania"; "I'll take three salmon steaks" take away - take from a person or place; "We took the abused child away from its parents" collect, take in - call for and obtain payment of; "we collected over a million dollars in outstanding debts"; "he collected the rent" confiscate, impound, sequester, seize, attach - take temporary possession of as a security, by legal authority; "The FBI seized the drugs"; "The customs agents impounded the illegal shipment"; "The police confiscated the stolen artwork" sequester - requisition forcibly, as of enemy property; "the estate was sequestered" pocket - put in one's pocket; "He pocketed the change" assume, take over, accept, bear - take on as one's own the expenses or debts of another person; "I'll accept the charges"; "She agreed to bear the responsibility" snaffle, snap up, grab - get hold of or seize quickly and easily; "I snapped up all the good buys during the garage sale" call back, withdraw, call in, recall - cause to be returned; "recall the defective auto tires"; "The manufacturer tried to call back the spoilt yoghurt" deprive, divest, strip - take away possessions from someone; "The Nazis stripped the Jews of all their assets" unburden - free or relieve (someone) of a burden draw off, take out, withdraw, draw - remove (a commodity) from (a supply source); "She drew $2,000 from the account"; "The doctors drew medical supplies from the hospital's emergency bank" take in - visit for entertainment; "take in the sights" give - transfer possession of something concrete or abstract to somebody; "I gave her my money"; "can you give me lessons?"; "She gave the children lots of love and tender loving care" | |
9. | take - travel or go by means of a certain kind of transportation, or a certain route; "He takes the bus to work"; "She takes Route 1 to Newark" apply, employ, use, utilise, utilize - put into service; make work or employ for a particular purpose or for its inherent or natural purpose; "use your head!"; "we only use Spanish at home"; "I can't use this tool"; "Apply a magnetic field here"; "This thinking was applied to many projects"; "How do you utilize this tool?"; "I apply this rule to get good results"; "use the plastic bags to store the food"; "He doesn't know how to use a computer" | |
10. | take - pick out, select, or choose from a number of alternatives; "Take any one of these cards"; "Choose a good husband for your daughter"; "She selected a pair of shoes from among the dozen the salesgirl had shown her" anoint - choose by or as if by divine intervention; "She was anointed the head of the Christian fundamentalist group" field - select (a team or individual player) for a game; "The Buckeyes fielded a young new quarterback for the Rose Bowl" draw - select or take in from a given group or region; "The participants in the experiment were drawn from a representative population" dial - choose by means of a dial; "dial a telephone number" plump, go - give support (to) or make a choice (of) one out of a group or number; "I plumped for the losing candidates" pick - select carefully from a group; "She finally picked her successor"; "He picked his way carefully" elect - choose; "I elected to have my funds deposited automatically" cull out, winnow - select desirable parts from a group or list; "cull out the interesting letters from the poet's correspondence"; "winnow the finalists from the long list of applicants" set apart, assign, specify - select something or someone for a specific purpose; "The teacher assigned him to lead his classmates in the exercise" single out - select from a group; "She was singled out for her outstanding performance" decide, make up one's mind, determine - reach, make, or come to a decision about something; "We finally decided after lengthy deliberations" think of - choose in one's mind; "Think of any integer between 1 and 25" specify, fix, limit, set, determine, define - decide upon or fix definitely; "fix the variables"; "specify the parameters" adopt, espouse, follow - choose and follow; as of theories, ideas, policies, strategies or plans; "She followed the feminist movement"; "The candidate espouses Republican ideals" screen out, sieve, sort, screen - examine in order to test suitability; "screen these samples"; "screen the job applicants" vote in - elect in a voting process; "They voted in Clinton" elect - select by a vote for an office or membership; "We elected him chairman of the board" nominate, propose - put forward; nominate for appointment to an office or for an honor or position; "The President nominated her as head of the Civil Rights Commission" vote - express one's preference for a candidate or for a measure or resolution; cast a vote; "He voted for the motion"; "None of the Democrats voted last night" | |
11. | ![]() receive, have - get something; come into possession of; "receive payment"; "receive a gift"; "receive letters from the front" acquire, get - come into the possession of something concrete or abstract; "She got a lot of paintings from her uncle"; "They acquired a new pet"; "Get your results the next day"; "Get permission to take a few days off from work" admit, take on, accept, take - admit into a group or community; "accept students for graduate study"; "We'll have to vote on whether or not to admit a new member" welcome - accept gladly; "I welcome your proposals" assume, take over, accept, bear - take on as one's own the expenses or debts of another person; "I'll accept the charges"; "She agreed to bear the responsibility" take in - provide with shelter | |
12. | take - assume, as of positions or roles; "She took the job as director of development"; "he occupies the position of manager"; "the young prince will soon occupy the throne" | |
13. | take - take into consideration for exemplifying purposes; "Take the case of China"; "Consider the following case" contemplate - consider as a possibility; "I contemplated leaving school and taking a full-time job" trifle, dally, play - consider not very seriously; "He is trifling with her"; "She plays with the thought of moving to Tasmania" think about - have on one's mind, think about actively; "I'm thinking about my friends abroad"; "She always thinks about her children first" abstract - consider apart from a particular case or instance; "Let's abstract away from this particular example" warm to - become excited about; "He warmed to the idea of a trip to Antarctica" | |
14. | take - require as useful, just, or proper; "It takes nerve to do what she did"; "success usually requires hard work"; "This job asks a lot of patience and skill"; "This position demands a lot of personal sacrifice"; "This dinner calls for a spectacular dessert"; "This intervention does not postulate a patient's consent" exact, claim, take - take as an undesirable consequence of some event or state of affairs; "the accident claimed three lives"; "The hard work took its toll on her" govern - require to be in a certain grammatical case, voice, or mood; "most transitive verbs govern the accusative case in German" draw - require a specified depth for floating; "This boat draws 70 inches" cost - require to lose, suffer, or sacrifice; "This mistake cost him his job" cry for, cry out for - need badly or desperately; "This question cries out for an answer" compel - necessitate or exact; "the water shortage compels conservation" | |
15. | take - experience or feel or submit to; "Take a test"; "Take the plunge" experience, have, receive, get - go through (mental or physical states or experiences); "get an idea"; "experience vertigo"; "get nauseous"; "receive injuries"; "have a feeling" | |
16. | take - make a film or photograph of something; "take a scene"; "shoot a movie" motion picture, motion-picture show, movie, moving picture, moving-picture show, pic, film, picture show, flick, picture - a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement; "they went to a movie every Saturday night"; "the film was shot on location" photograph, shoot, snap - record on photographic film; "I photographed the scene of the accident"; "She snapped a picture of the President" reshoot - shoot again; "We had to reshoot that scene 24 times" | |
17. | take - remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract; "remove a threat"; "remove a wrapper"; "Remove the dirty dishes from the table"; "take the gun from your pocket"; "This machine withdraws heat from the environment" harvest - remove from a culture or a living or dead body, as for the purposes of transplantation; "The Chinese are said to harvest organs from executed criminals" tip - remove the tip from; "tip artichokes" stem - remove the stem from; "for automatic natural language processing, the words must be stemmed" extirpate - surgically remove (an organ) enucleate - remove (a tumor or eye) from an enveloping sac or cover exenterate - remove the contents of (an organ) enucleate - remove the nucleus from (a cell) decorticate - remove the cortex of (an organ) bail - remove (water) from a vessel with a container undress, disinvest, divest, strip - remove (someone's or one's own) clothes; "The nurse quickly undressed the accident victim"; "She divested herself of her outdoor clothes"; "He disinvested himself of his garments" ablate - remove an organ or bodily structure clean - remove shells or husks from; "clean grain before milling it" winnow - blow away or off with a current of air; "winnow chaff" pick - remove in small bits; "pick meat from a bone" muck - remove muck, clear away muck, as in a mine lift - remove from a surface; "the detective carefully lifted some fingerprints from the table" lift - take off or away by decreasing; "lift the pressure" lift - remove from a seedbed or from a nursery; "lift the tulip bulbs" take off - take away or remove; "Take that weight off me!" seed - remove the seeds from; "seed grapes" unhinge - remove the hinges from; "unhinge the door" shuck - remove the shucks from; "shuck corn" hull - remove the hulls from; "hull the berries" crumb - remove crumbs from; "crumb the table" chip away, chip away at - remove or withdraw gradually: "These new customs are chipping away at the quality of life" burl - remove the burls from cloth knock out - destroy or break forcefully; "The windows were knocked out" hypophysectomise, hypophysectomize - remove the pituitary glands degas - remove gas from clear away, clear off - remove from sight flick - remove with a flick (of the hand) strip - remove a constituent from a liquid clear - remove; "clear the leaves from the lawn"; "Clear snow from the road" defang - remove the fangs from; "defang the poisonous snake" shell - remove from its shell or outer covering; "shell the legumes"; "shell mussels" shuck - remove from the shell; "shuck oysters" dehorn - prevent the growth of horns of certain animals scalp - remove the scalp of; "The enemies were scalped" weed - clear of weeds; "weed the garden" condense - remove water from; "condense the milk" decalcify - remove calcium or lime from; "decalcify the rock" detoxicate, detoxify - remove poison from; "detoxify the soil" de-ionate - remove ions from; "ionate thyroxine" de-iodinate - remove iodine from; "de-iodinate the thyroxine" | |
18. | take - serve oneself to, or consume regularly; "Have another bowl of chicken soup!"; "I don't take sugar in my coffee" hit - consume to excess; "hit the bottle" cannibalise, cannibalize - eat human flesh eat - eat a meal; take a meal; "We did not eat until 10 P.M. because there were so many phone calls"; "I didn't eat yet, so I gladly accept your invitation" eat - take in solid food; "She was eating a banana"; "What did you eat for dinner last night?" drink, imbibe - take in liquids; "The patient must drink several liters each day"; "The children like to drink soda" eat, feed - take in food; used of animals only; "This dog doesn't eat certain kinds of meat"; "What do whales eat?" sample, taste, try, try out - take a sample of; "Try these new crackers"; "Sample the regional dishes" smoke - inhale and exhale smoke from cigarettes, cigars, pipes; "We never smoked marijuana"; "Do you smoke?" swallow, get down - pass through the esophagus as part of eating or drinking; "Swallow the raw fish--it won't kill you!" sup - take solid or liquid food into the mouth a little at a time either by drinking or by eating with a spoon | |
19. | ![]() test - undergo a test; "She doesn't test well" undergo - pass through; "The chemical undergoes a sudden change"; "The fluid undergoes shear"; "undergo a strange sensation" take - experience or feel or submit to; "Take a test"; "Take the plunge" | |
20. | ![]() co-opt - take or assume for one's own use; "He co-opted the criticism and embraced it" | |
21. | take - take by force; "Hitler took the Baltic Republics"; "The army took the fort on the hill" rescue - take forcibly from legal custody; "rescue prisoners" scale - take by attacking with scaling ladders; "The troops scaled the walls of the fort" extort - obtain through intimidation take over, usurp, arrogate, seize, assume - seize and take control without authority and possibly with force; take as one's right or possession; "He assumed to himself the right to fill all positions in the town"; "he usurped my rights"; "She seized control of the throne after her husband died" retake, recapture - take back by force, as after a battle; "The military forces managed to recapture the fort" relieve - take by stealing; "The thief relieved me of $100" steal - take without the owner's consent; "Someone stole my wallet on the train"; "This author stole entire paragraphs from my dissertation" | |
22. | ![]() move - move so as to change position, perform a nontranslational motion; "He moved his hand slightly to the right" | |
23. | ![]() profess - receive into a religious order or congregation | |
24. | take - ascertain or determine by measuring, computing or take a reading from a dial; "take a pulse"; "A reading was taken of the earth's tremors" | |
25. | take - be a student of a certain subject; "She is reading for the bar exam" audit - attend academic courses without getting credit | |
26. | take - take as an undesirable consequence of some event or state of affairs; "the accident claimed three lives"; "The hard work took its toll on her" necessitate, need, require, call for, demand, postulate, involve, ask, take - require as useful, just, or proper; "It takes nerve to do what she did"; "success usually requires hard work"; "This job asks a lot of patience and skill"; "This position demands a lot of personal sacrifice"; "This dinner calls for a spectacular dessert"; "This intervention does not postulate a patient's consent" | |
27. | take - head into a specified direction; "The escaped convict took to the hills"; "We made for the mountains" head - to go or travel towards; "where is she heading"; "We were headed for the mountains" | |
28. | ![]() target, direct, aim, place, point - intend (something) to move towards a certain goal; "He aimed his fists towards his opponent's face"; "criticism directed at her superior"; "direct your anger towards others, not towards yourself" draw a bead on - aim with a gun; "The hunter drew a bead on the rabbit" hold - aim, point, or direct; "Hold the fire extinguisher directly on the flames" turn - direct at someone; "She turned a smile on me"; "They turned their flashlights on the car" swing - hit or aim at with a sweeping arm movement; "The soccer player began to swing at the referee" level - aim at; "level criticism or charges at somebody" position - cause to be in an appropriate place, state, or relation sight - take aim by looking through the sights of a gun (or other device) | |
29. | take - be seized or affected in a specified way; "take sick"; "be taken drunk" | |
30. | take - have with oneself; have on one's person; "She always takes an umbrella"; "I always carry money"; "She packs a gun when she goes into the mountains" carry - have or possess something abstract; "I carry her image in my mind's eye"; "I will carry the secret to my grave"; "I carry these thoughts in the back of my head"; "I carry a lot of life insurance" | |
31. | take - engage for service under a term of contract; "We took an apartment on a quiet street"; "Let's rent a car"; "Shall we take a guide in Rome?" | |
32. | take - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day" | |
33. | take - buy, select; "I'll take a pound of that sausage" commerce, commercialism, mercantilism - transactions (sales and purchases) having the objective of supplying commodities (goods and services) | |
34. | take - to get into a position of having, e.g., safety, comfort; "take shelter from the storm" | |
35. | take - have sex with; archaic use; "He had taken this woman when she was most vulnerable" do it, get it on, get laid, have a go at it, have intercourse, have it away, have it off, be intimate, lie with, roll in the hay, screw, sleep together, sleep with, hump, jazz, love, bed, bang, make out, know - have sexual intercourse with; "This student sleeps with everyone in her dorm"; "Adam knew Eve"; "Were you ever intimate with this man?" | |
36. | take - lay claim to; as of an idea; "She took credit for the whole idea" | |
37. | ![]() be - have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun); "John is rich"; "This is not a good answer" | |
38. | take - be capable of holding or containing; "This box won't take all the items"; "The flask holds one gallon" be - have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun); "John is rich"; "This is not a good answer" contain, bear, carry, hold - contain or hold; have within; "The jar carries wine"; "The canteen holds fresh water"; "This can contains water" accommodate, admit, hold - have room for; hold without crowding; "This hotel can accommodate 250 guests"; "The theater admits 300 people"; "The auditorium can't hold more than 500 people" | |
39. | take - develop a habit; "He took to visiting bars" | |
40. | take - proceed along in a vehicle; "We drive the turnpike to work" driving - the act of controlling and steering the movement of a vehicle or animal cross, cut across, cut through, get over, traverse, pass over, get across, track, cover - travel across or pass over; "The caravan covered almost 100 miles each day" motor, drive - travel or be transported in a vehicle; "We drove to the university every morning"; "They motored to London for the theater" drive - operate or control a vehicle; "drive a car or bus"; "Can you drive this four-wheel truck?" drive - cause someone or something to move by driving; "She drove me to school every day"; "We drove the car to the garage" | |
41. | take - obtain by winning; "Winner takes all"; "He took first prize" win - be the winner in a contest or competition; be victorious; "He won the Gold Medal in skating"; "Our home team won"; "Win the game" | |
42. | take - be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness; "He got AIDS"; "She came down with pneumonia"; "She took a chill" catch - contract; "did you catch a cold?" |