Word.ws English Dictionary

taken the bait

taken the bait is the past participle of take the bait.

Meaning of take the bait

Verb

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

  1. (literally) To nibble at bait on a hook.
    Synonyms:
    strike
  2. (figuratively) To be lured by an offer, flattery, or a provocation into doing something, especially something disadvantageous or dubious.
    • "I would like to first of all commend all of the police officers today. . . . They were in fact at various times provoked, and they didn't take the bait in any way, shape or form."1997 August 30, John Kifner, “Thousands Call on City Hall To Confront Police Brutality”, in New York Times, retrieved 08 May 2015
    Synonyms:
    bite, fall for it, rise to the bait

Questions about taken the bait

What is taken the bait the past participle of?
Taken the bait is the past participle of take the bait.

Words near taken the bait in the dictionary

  1. taken something off someone's hands
  2. taken something to
  3. taken something to one's grave
  4. taken stock
  5. taken ten
  6. taken the bait
  7. taken the ball and run with it
  8. taken the bench
  9. taken the biscuit
  10. taken the bitter with the sweet
  11. taken the bread out of someone's mouth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taken the bait (page history and authors); take the bait (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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Cite this entry: “taken the bait.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/taken_the_bait. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.