Word.ws English Dictionary

take a bullet

take a bullet verb: to purposely receive a gunshot that was intended for another.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To purposely receive a gunshot that was intended for another.

Forms of take a bullet

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

Questions about take a bullet

What does take a bullet mean?
Take a bullet means to purposely receive a gunshot that was intended for another.
What part of speech is take a bullet?
Take a bullet is a verb.
What is the past tense of take a bullet?
The past tense of take a bullet is took a bullet.

Words near take a bullet in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take a bullet (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 bullet.ogg.

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