take the bitter with the sweet
take the bitter with the sweet verb: to accept positive things with negative things.
Verb
take the bitter with the sweet (third-person singular simple present takes the bitter with the sweet, present participle taking the bitter with the sweet, simple past took the bitter with the sweet, past participle taken the bitter with the sweet)
- To accept positive things with negative things.
- Today we had the bitter with the sweet: they approved the loan but only gave us a year to pay it back in.
- Synonyms:
- take the rough with the smooth
Synonyms of take the bitter with the sweet
Forms of take the bitter with the sweet
| third-person singular present | takes the bitter with the sweet |
|---|---|
| present participle | taking the bitter with the sweet |
| past | took the bitter with the sweet |
| past participle | taken the bitter with the sweet |
Questions about take the bitter with the sweet
- What does take the bitter with the sweet mean?
- Take the bitter with the sweet means to accept positive things with negative things.
- What part of speech is take the bitter with the sweet?
- Take the bitter with the sweet is a verb.
- What is the past tense of take the bitter with the sweet?
- The past tense of take the bitter with the sweet is took the bitter with the sweet.
Words near take the bitter with the sweet in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: take the bitter with the sweet (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 the bitter with the sweet.ogg.
Cite this entry: “take the bitter with the sweet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_the_bitter_with_the_sweet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.