take over

Verb

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

1. To assume control of something, such as a business or enterprise, and sometimes by force.
   • Pilton Yard, the Lynton & Barnstaple headquarters, has been taken over by a fur trading firm, and would-be trespassers to the old engine-shed are turned back by the pungent odour of heaps of carcases.1951 February, “Notes and News: Lynton & Barnstaple Remains”, in Railway Magazine, page 136
   • In Rio de Janeiro, thousands protested in a gritty area far from the city’s upscale seaside districts. In other cities, demonstrators blocked roads, barged into City Council meetings or interrupted sessions of local lawmakers, clapping loudly and sometimes taking over the microphone.2013 June 18, Simon Romero, “Protests Widen as Brazilians Chide Leaders”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 Jun 2013

   Synonyms:

   commandeer

2. To adopt a further responsibility or duty.
   • He will take over the job permanently when the accountant retires.
3. To relieve someone temporarily.
   • My husband is taking over the accounts department during the holiday period, while the chief accountant is away.
   • If you will take over driving, I'd like to get some sleep.
4. To buy out the ownership of a business.
   • Acme Motors is to take Jetcar Industries over this week, if all goes as planned.
   • Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their...2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70
5. To appropriate something without permission.
6. To annex a territory by conquest or invasion; to conquer.
   • Ancient Rome took over lands throughout the known world.
   • Founded about 1000 bc by Aeolian Greeks, the city [Assos] was successively ruled by Lydians, Persians, Pergamenes, Romans, and Byzantines, until Sultan Orhan Gazi (1288–1360) took it over for the Ottomans in 1330.1993, “The Aegean Coast”, in Karen Cure, editor, Fodor’s Turkey […], New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: Fodor’s Travel Publications, →ISBN, page 104
7. (intransitive, transitive) To become more successful than (someone or something else).
   • Buzz Lightyear has taken over Woody as the most popular children's toy.
   • Tiger Woods has taken over as the top golfer.

   Synonyms:

   overtake, surpass

8. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take, over.
   • He took the car over to the garage.