take out

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• Rhymes: -aʊt

take out (third-person singular simple present takes out, present participle taking out, simple past took out, past participle taken out)

1. To remove.
   • 1913, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., , , →OCLC, page 10:

     Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

   • 1962 October, “Talking of Trains: Liverpool Street layout remodelled”, in Modern Railways, page 222:

     At the same time, three sets of obsolete angle point protectors (used for slip connections), which were considered unsatisfactory, were taken out and several redundant connections removed.

   • 2017 February 20, Paul Mason, “Climate scepticism is a far-right badge of honour – even in sweltering Australia”, in The Guardian‎:

     In France, 27% of voters are currently backing the Front National, a party determined to take the country out of the Paris accord, which it sees as “a communist project”.

2. To escort someone on a date.

   Let me take you out for dinner.

3. (idiomatic) To immobilize with force; to subdue; to incapacitate.
   • 2007, Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter (fiction), →ISBN:

     I don't know if he's close by. He's unarmed, though. He lost his gun when I took him out.

   • 2011, Steven Wood, The Dragon Girl: the Beginning (fiction), page 110:

     I tore right through it and took him to the ground and knocked him out cold, "Ralph, oh your going to pay for that." he said and he started fighting me which he was good but not good enough and I took him out in no time.

   • 2015, Sean Rodman, Tap Out (fiction), page 56:

     "Heard a rumor you took out Mr. Hassel." He mimes a punch.

4. (transitive) To obtain by application by a legal or other official process.

   take out a loan;  take out medical insurance;  take out a membership;  take out a patent

   • 2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in The Guardian‎:

     Southwark council, which took out the injunction against Matt, believes YouTube has become the "new playground" for gang members.

5. (idiomatic, slang) To kill or destroy.

   The soldiers were instructed to take out the enemy base by any means necessary.

   • 2003, Jeff Kaye, Two Faces Have I (fiction), page 414:

     Anyway, one of the snipers took him out.

   • 2008 July 14, Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, The Dark Knight, spoken by Happy (William Smillie), Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Comics, Legendary Pictures:

     Boss told me when the guy was done, I should take him out.

   • 2011, Brett Spencer, Two Standing (fiction), page 84:

     Before he could get a shot off, Wilder took him out with two shots to the chest, just as Roderick took out the third shooter.

   • 2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 27:00 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?‎, archived from the original on 3 November 2022:

     The Johnston emerges from a smokescreen to find the Haruna at close range. So of course it shoots up the battleship's superstructure whilst ducking back into the smoke as Kongō tries to take it out using its main battery.

6. (idiomatic, slang) To stun, amaze; to kill.

   These photos are taking me out.

   • 2024 July 9, Alice Gibbs, “New York City Unveils New Trash Can 'Revolution,' Mercilessly Mocked Online”, in Newsweek‎:

     User directional transsexual (@north0fnorth) added: "Playing 'Empire State of Mind' while wheeling out the kind of trash bin that every other major U.S. city has had forever and calling it a revolution is taking me out."

7. (colloquial) To win a sporting event, competition, premiership, etc.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

take out

1. Nonstandard spelling of takeout.

• outtake