Word.ws English Dictionary

taking the bait

taking the bait is the present participle and gerund 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 taking the bait

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

Words near taking the bait in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taking 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: “taking the bait.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/taking_the_bait. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.