Word.ws English Dictionary

take five

take five verb: to take a short, typically five-minute, break from some activity.

Verb

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

  1. (Canada, US, informal) To take a short, typically five-minute, break from some activity.
    • Hey, stop fighting! Take five, people!

Forms of take five

third-person singular presenttakes five
present participletaking five
pasttook five
past participletaken five
alternative formtake a five

Questions about take five

What does take five mean?
Take five means to take a short, typically five-minute, break from some activity.
What part of speech is take five?
Take five is a verb.
What is the past tense of take five?
The past tense of take five is took five.

Words near take five in the dictionary

  1. take down a peg
  2. take easy
  3. take effect
  4. take exception
  5. take fire
  6. take five
  7. take flight
  8. take for
  9. take for a drive
  10. take for a ride
  11. take for a spin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take five (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:

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

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