take no for an answer
take no for an answer verb: to accept a refusal or rejection and cease pressing the issue.
Verb
take no for an answer (third-person singular simple present takes no for an answer, present participle taking no for an answer, simple past took no for an answer, past participle taken no for an answer)
- To accept a refusal or rejection and cease pressing the issue.
- No, I won't take no for an answer / Girl I made up my mind / Gonna be loving you, loving you / No, I won't take no for an answer1976, Eddie Kendricks, “I Won't Take No”, in He's A Friend
- However, as anyone who knew Adrian Shooter would affirm, he very rarely took no for an answer.2024 August 21, Peter Plisner, “The changing role of our railway stations”, in RAIL, number 1016, page 62
Forms of take no for an answer
| third-person singular present | takes no for an answer |
|---|---|
| present participle | taking no for an answer |
| past | took no for an answer |
| past participle | taken no for an answer |
Questions about take no for an answer
- What does take no for an answer mean?
- Take no for an answer means to accept a refusal or rejection and cease pressing the issue.
- What part of speech is take no for an answer?
- Take no for an answer is a verb.
- What is the past tense of take no for an answer?
- The past tense of take no for an answer is took no for an answer.
Words near take no for an answer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: take no for an answer (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 no for an answer.ogg.
Cite this entry: “take no for an answer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_no_for_an_answer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.