take out

Verb

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

1. To remove.
   • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn...1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans...
   • At the same time, three sets of obsolete angle point protectors (used for slip connections), which were considered unsatisfactory, were taken out and several redundant connections removed.1962 October, “Talking of Trains: Liverpool Street layout remodelled”, in Modern Railways, page 222
2. To escort someone on a date.
   • Let me take you out for dinner.
3. (idiomatic) To immobilize with force; to subdue; to incapacitate.
   • I don't know if he's close by. He's unarmed, though. He lost his gun when I took him out.2007, Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter (fiction), →ISBN
   • I tore right through it and took him to the ground and knocked him out cold, "Ralph, oh your going to pay for that." he said and he started fighting me which he was good but not good enough and I took him out in no time.2011, Steven Wood, The Dragon Girl: the Beginning (fiction), page 110
4. (transitive) To obtain by application by a legal or other official process.
   • take out a loan; take out medical insurance; take out a membership; take out a patent
   • Southwark council, which took out the injunction against Matt, believes YouTube has become the "new playground" for gang members.2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in The Guardian
5. (idiomatic, slang) To kill or destroy.
   • The soldiers were instructed to take out the enemy base by any means necessary.
   • Anyway, one of the snipers took him out.2003, Jeff Kaye, Two Faces Have I (fiction), page 414
6. (idiomatic, slang) To stun, amaze; to kill.
   • These photos are taking me out.
   • User directional transsexual (@north0fnorth) added: "Playing 'Empire State of Mind' while wheeling out the kind of trash bin that every other major U.S. city has had forever and calling it a revolution is taking me out."2024 July 9, Alice Gibbs, “New York City Unveils New Trash Can 'Revolution,' Mercilessly Mocked Online”, in Newsweek
7. (colloquial) To win a sporting event, competition, premiership, etc.