Word.ws English Dictionary

take the waters

take the waters verb: to attend a spa with waters believed to offer healing qualities, such as mineral waters and (especially) hot springs.

Verb

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

  1. To attend a spa with waters believed to offer healing qualities, such as mineral waters and (especially) hot springs.
    • The arrival of the railway turned this isolated fishing village into a popular seaside destination for Victorians who came to breathe fresh sea air, clear their lungs or take the waters.2022 January 12, Paul Bigland, “Fab Four: the nation's finest stations: Grange-over-Sands”, in RAIL, number 948, page 27
    • And that evening, I have the chance to “take the waters” in the spa downstairs, which I do as much as I can while I am here–the hotel is the only one in Bath with direct access to the natural thermal spring water.2025 May 10, Jemima Kelly, “My week with Jane Austen”, in FT Weekend (Travel section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7

Forms of take the waters

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

Questions about take the waters

What does take the waters mean?
Take the waters means to attend a spa with waters believed to offer healing qualities, such as mineral waters and (especially) hot springs.
What part of speech is take the waters?
Take the waters is a verb.
What is the past tense of take the waters?
The past tense of take the waters is took the waters.

Words near take the waters in the dictionary

  1. take the stump
  2. take the sun
  3. take the time
  4. take the trouble
  5. take the veil
  6. take the waters
  7. take the wax out of one's ears
  8. take the weight off
  9. take the weight off one's feet
  10. take the wheel
  11. take the wind out of someone's sails

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take the waters (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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