take place

Verb

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

1. (intransitive) To happen or to occur.
   • Unfortunately, the meeting never took place.
   • The wedding was to take place in the rose garden.

   Synonyms:

   come to pass

2. (obsolete) To take precedence or priority.
   • I know him a notorious liar, / Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; / Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him, / That they take place, when virtue’s steely bones / Look bleak i’ the cold wind […]c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
   • As a British Free-Holder, I should not scruple taking place of a French Marquis; and when I see one of my Countreymen amusing himself in his little Cabbage-Garden, I naturally look upon him as a greater Person than the Owner of the richest Vineyard in Champagne.1716 January 2 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 1. Thursday, December 23. 1715.”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […]...
3. (obsolete) To take effect; to prevail.
   • But he to shifte their curious request, / Gan causen, why she could not come in place; / Her crased helth, her late recourse to rest, / And humid euening ill for sicke folkes cace, / But none of those excuses could take place; / Ne would they eate, till she in presence came.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 534
   • […] the moderate advice took place, and the people, upon the Kings engagement of soon remedying their miseries, return’d with blessings for him […]1676, Roger Boyle, Parthenissa, London: Henry Herringman, Part 1, p. 51
4. (obsolete) To sit in a particular location, take one's place.
   • King Henry VIII takes place under the cloth of state; Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeius sit under him as judges. Queen Katharine takes place some distance from King Henry VIII.1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio)...
   • Cedric himself coldly nodded in answer to the Jew's repeated salutations, and signed to him to take place at the lower end of the table, where, however, no one offered to make room for him.1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter V, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst...