Word.ws English Dictionary

take the stand

take the stand verb: to testify as a witness in a trial.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To testify as a witness in a trial.
    • The press speculated about whether he would take the stand and testify in his defense.
    • At the conclusion of the case, the defendant not having dared to take the stand, the lawyer arose to address the jury in behalf of what appeared a hopeless cause.1912, Arthur Cheney Train, “Tricks of the Trade”, in Courts and Criminals

Forms of take the stand

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

Questions about take the stand

What does take the stand mean?
Take the stand means to testify as a witness in a trial.
What part of speech is take the stand?
Take the stand is a verb.
What is the past tense of take the stand?
The past tense of take the stand is took the stand.

Words near take the stand in the dictionary

  1. take the salute
  2. take the shadow for the substance
  3. take the shilling
  4. take the shine out of
  5. take the stage
  6. take the stand
  7. take the studs
  8. take the stump
  9. take the sun
  10. take the time
  11. take the trouble

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take the stand (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 stand.ogg.

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