Word.ws English Dictionary

take the plunge

take the plunge verb: to begin any major commitment.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To begin any major commitment.
    • And as scientists studying the subject, we will have to conclude that she will take the plunge only if she suffers from overconfidence bias or is innately risk-loving.2009, Saras D. Sarasvathy, Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise, page 196
    • Patrick: Joel and Brinique just went public with matching bracelets.
      Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Oh, he, uh, he took the plunge? Ahh, I know what that's like.2011 Allen Gregory, "1 Night in Gottlieb" (season 1, episode 2)
  2. (idiomatic) To get engaged to be married.
    • She's been seeing William now for about seven months and it looks as if they may take the plunge.2001, Ben Young, Samuel Adams, The One: A Realistic Guide to Choosing Your Soul Mate
    • It was easier for Morris to take the plunge – he had an independent income and was wealthy enough to build a house in the country for himself and his wife.2002, Judith Flanders, A Circle of Sisters

take the plunge meaning in Bengali and Malayalam

take the plunge in Bengali

বিয়ের জন্য বাগদান করা

take the plunge in Malayalam

go for it, commit oneself, throw caution to the winds
രണ്ടും കല്പിച്ചിറങ്ങുക, സാഹസത്തിന് ഉദ്യമിക്കുക, ബാദ്ധ്യതയേൽക്കുക, ആത്മസമർപ്പണം ചെയ്യുക, തുനിഞ്ഞിറങ്ങുക, ആദ്യം അറച്ചുനിന്നശേഷം എടുത്തു ചാടുക

Examples of take the plunge in a sentence

  • I decided to take the plunge as Series Editor by also taking the plunge as my first volume editor.2011, Jeffrey Runner, Experiments at the Interfaces, page ix:
  • I was pretty much going to be the last one among my peers to take the plunge.2007, Dr. David Gudgel, Brent Gudgel, Before You Get Engaged, page 203:
  • I guess I'm thinking who am I to tell my mother she shouldn't marry." “Especially since you're about to take the plunge yourself?” he asked lightly.2012, Stephanie Bond, Stop the Wedding!::

Forms of take the plunge

third-person singular presenttakes the plunge
present participletaking the plunge
pasttook the plunge
past participletaken the plunge

Questions about take the plunge

What does take the plunge mean?
Take the plunge means to begin any major commitment.
What is take the plunge in Bengali?
Take the plunge in Bengali is বিয়ের জন্য বাগদান করা. See Take the plunge meaning in Bengali.
How do you use take the plunge in a sentence?
I decided to take the plunge as Series Editor by also taking the plunge as my first volume editor.
What part of speech is take the plunge?
Take the plunge is a verb.
What is the past tense of take the plunge?
The past tense of take the plunge is took the plunge.

Words near take the plunge in the dictionary

  1. take the offensive
  2. take the pee
  3. take the piss
  4. take the place of
  5. take the pledge
  6. take the plunge
  7. take the point
  8. take the purple
  9. take the rap
  10. take the red eye
  11. take the red pill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take the plunge (page history and authors); take the plunge (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); take the plunge (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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 plunge.ogg.

Cite this entry: “take the plunge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_the_plunge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.