Word.ws English Dictionary

taking the fall

taking the fall is the present participle of take the fall.

Meaning of take the fall

Verb

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

  1. (especially, idiomatic, informal) To willingly lose a match, as in a fixed fight.
  2. (idiomatic, informal) To bear the blame or punishment for another person's failure or misdeed, either intentionally or not.
    • It was good of him to take the fall for you like that, I just wonder if he will come out of this one unscathed.
    Synonyms:
    take the rap

Questions about taking the fall

What is taking the fall the present participle of?
Taking the fall is the present participle of take the fall.

Words near taking the fall in the dictionary

  1. taking the count
  2. taking the coward's way out
  3. taking the cure
  4. taking the easy way out
  5. taking the edge off
  6. taking the fall
  7. taking the fifth
  8. taking the front seat
  9. taking the game to
  10. taking the gap
  11. taking the gilt off the gingerbread

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: taking the fall (page history and authors); take the fall (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “taking the fall.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/taking_the_fall. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.