takes place

Verb

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

1. (intransitive) To happen or to occur.
   • Unfortunately, the meeting never took place.

   Synonyms:

   come to pass

2. (obsolete) To take precedence or priority.
   • I know him a notorious liar, / Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; / Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him, / That they take place, when virtue’s steely bones / Look bleak i’ the cold wind […]c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
3. (obsolete) To take effect; to prevail.
   • But he to shifte their curious request, / Gan causen, why she could not come in place; / Her crased helth, her late recourse to rest, / And humid euening ill for sicke folkes cace, / But none of those excuses could take place; / Ne would they eate, till she in presence came.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 534
4. (obsolete) To sit in a particular location, take one's place.
   • King Henry VIII takes place under the cloth of state; Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeius sit under him as judges. Queen Katharine takes place some distance from King Henry VIII.1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio)...