Word.ws English Dictionary

take a joke

take a joke verb: to accept a joke at one's expense.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To accept a joke at one's expense.
    • The school authorities, unable to take a joke, demanded the immediate removal of the satirical poster.

Forms of take a joke

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

Questions about take a joke

What does take a joke mean?
Take a joke means to accept a joke at one's expense.
What part of speech is take a joke?
Take a joke is a verb.
What is the past tense of take a joke?
The past tense of take a joke is took a joke.

Words near take a joke in the dictionary

  1. take a guess
  2. take a hike
  3. take a hint
  4. take a hit
  5. take a horn
  6. take a joke
  7. take a knee
  8. take a knife to a gunfight
  9. take a leaf out of someone's book
  10. take a leak
  11. take a licking

Source and license

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

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