Word.ws English Dictionary

taking one for the team

taking one for the team is the present participle and gerund of take one for the team.

Meaning of take one for the team

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To accept some chore, hardship, or punishment for the sake of one's friends or colleagues.
    • [Casey Newton:] Yes, Arijeta, you really did take one for the team on this one, I have to say.2026 March 6, Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, “OpenAI’s Fog of War + Betting on Iran + Hard Fork Review of Slop”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Questions about taking one for the team

What is taking one for the team the present participle and gerund of?
Taking one for the team is the present participle and gerund of take one for the team.

Words near taking one for the team in the dictionary

  1. taking on strength
  2. taking on the chin
  3. taking on trust
  4. taking on water
  5. taking one day at a time
  6. taking one for the team
  7. taking one up
  8. taking one's ball and going home
  9. taking one's business elsewhere
  10. taking one's chance
  11. taking one's courage in both hands

Source and license

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