Word.ws English Dictionary

take a breather

take a breather verb: to take a break; to pause or relax briefly.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To take a break; to pause or relax briefly.
    • Why don't we stop and take a breather before we continue?

Forms of take a breather

third-person singular presenttakes a breather
present participletaking a breather
pasttook a breather
past participletaken a breather

Questions about take a breather

What does take a breather mean?
Take a breather means to take a break; to pause or relax briefly.
What part of speech is take a breather?
Take a breather is a verb.
What is the past tense of take a breather?
The past tense of take a breather is took a breather.

Words near take a breather in the dictionary

  1. take a bite
  2. take a bite out of
  3. take a bow
  4. take a break
  5. take a breath
  6. take a breather
  7. take a bullet
  8. take a chair
  9. take a chance
  10. take a cotton to
  11. take a crack at

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take a breather (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-take a breather.ogg.

Cite this entry: “take a breather.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_a_breather. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.