Word.ws English Dictionary

taking on the chin

taking on the chin is the present participle and gerund of take on the chin.

Meaning of take on the chin

Verb

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

  1. (UK, idiomatic, transitive) To accept without flinching or complaining.
    • Elsewhere in Sweden recently, two underage girls pressed charges when a teenage boy exposed himself to them at a lake. The court decided, despite the victims' testimonies, that the offence was "not of a sexual nature" and dismissed it. But I'm guessing the girls didn't push for molestation charges...2013 September 20, Holly Baxter, “Is masturbating in public a laughing matter?”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2023, retrieved 06 Jan 2014
  2. (US, idiomatic, transitive) To be deeply impacted by something.
    • The situation seems to be designed so the taxpayers take it on the chin no matter what. District residents who vote down a budget believing they are voting against any tax raise still receive higher tax bills.2005 May 20, Robert David Kostoff, My Line Story, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 136

Questions about taking on the chin

What is taking on the chin the present participle and gerund of?
Taking on the chin is the present participle and gerund of take on the chin.

Words near taking on the chin in the dictionary

  1. taking offense
  2. taking office
  3. taking on
  4. taking on faith
  5. taking on strength
  6. taking on the chin
  7. taking on trust
  8. taking on water
  9. taking one day at a time
  10. taking one for the team
  11. taking one up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taking on the chin (page history and authors); take on the chin (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: “taking on the chin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/taking_on_the_chin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.