Word.ws English Dictionary

take the bull by the horns

take the bull by the horns verb: to deal with a matter in a direct manner, especially to confront a difficulty rather than avoid it.

Verb

take the bull by the horns (third-person singular simple present takes the bull by the horns, present participle taking the bull by the horns, simple past took the bull by the horns, past participle taken the bull by the horns)

  1. To deal with a matter in a direct manner, especially to confront a difficulty rather than avoid it.
    • Wordsworth has a system which disposes him to take the bull by the horns and offend public taste.1828 May, Sir Walter Scott, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott
    • "Then why couldn' ye take the bull by the horns an' march in by the front door?"1912, Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 4, in Hocken and Hunken

Synonyms of take the bull by the horns

Forms of take the bull by the horns

third-person singular presenttakes the bull by the horns
present participletaking the bull by the horns
pasttook the bull by the horns
past participletaken the bull by the horns

Questions about take the bull by the horns

What does take the bull by the horns mean?
Take the bull by the horns means to deal with a matter in a direct manner, especially to confront a difficulty rather than avoid it.
What part of speech is take the bull by the horns?
Take the bull by the horns is a verb.
What is the past tense of take the bull by the horns?
The past tense of take the bull by the horns is took the bull by the horns.

Words near take the bull by the horns in the dictionary

  1. take the bench
  2. take the biscuit
  3. take the bitter with the sweet
  4. take the bread out of someone's mouth
  5. take the browns to the super bowl
  6. take the bull by the horns
  7. take the cake
  8. take the cash and let the credit go
  9. take the chair
  10. take the chill off
  11. take the Chiltern Hundreds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take the bull by the horns (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 the bull by the horns.ogg.

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