Word.ws English Dictionary

take control

take control verb: to assume control, to gain power over someone or something.

Verb

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

  1. To assume control, to gain power over someone or something.
    • She'd seen a doctor who’d prescribed Subutex, a drug-replacement treatment designed to wean the user off heroin. It had made her throw up. I was so relieved and told her how proud I was of her for taking control.2013, Mitch Winehouse, Amy, My Daughter, London: Harper, →ISBN, page 120
    • The Netherlands, who saw Denzel Dumfries' header hit the bar before the break, took control after the break and it required important interventions from keeper Jordan Pickford to keep England level.2024 July 10, Phil McNulty, BBC Sport

Synonyms of take control

Antonyms

Forms of take control

third-person singular presenttakes control
present participletaking control
pasttook control
past participletaken control

Questions about take control

What does take control mean?
Take control means to assume control, to gain power over someone or something.
What part of speech is take control?
Take control is a verb.
What is the past tense of take control?
The past tense of take control is took control.

Words near take control in the dictionary

  1. take charge
  2. take check
  3. take coals to Newcastle
  4. take cold
  5. take command
  6. take control
  7. take courage
  8. take cover
  9. take credit
  10. take delight in
  11. take delivery

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take control (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.

Last updated:

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