Word.ws English Dictionary

taking no prisoners

taking no prisoners is the present participle and gerund of take no prisoners.

Meaning of take no prisoners

Verb

take no prisoners (third-person singular simple present takes no prisoners, present participle taking no prisoners, simple past took no prisoners, past participle taken no prisoners)

  1. (idiomatic) To be uncompromising.
    • It’s a rare thing to see a movie about science that takes no prisoners intellectually.2015 January 21, “Ex Machina: Quest to create an AI takes no prisoners”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), New Scientist
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take, prisoner.

Questions about taking no prisoners

What is taking no prisoners the present participle and gerund of?
Taking no prisoners is the present participle and gerund of take no prisoners.

Words near taking no prisoners in the dictionary

  1. taking long
  2. taking lying down
  3. taking matters into one's own hands
  4. taking no for an answer
  5. taking no notice of
  6. taking no prisoners
  7. taking note
  8. taking notes
  9. taking notice
  10. taking oath
  11. taking occasion

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taking no prisoners (page history and authors); take no prisoners (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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