Word.ws English Dictionary

took a bow

took a bow is the simple past of take a bow.

Meaning of take a bow

Verb

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

  1. To bow (gesture of deference).
  2. (idiomatic) To accept praise, as performers in a theater at the end of their act.
  3. (idiomatic) To end a performance; to leave.
  4. (idiomatic, sarcastic) To take credit or blame for a particular outcome or circumstance.
    • The years we spent together were the worst years of my life. You can take a bow.

Questions about took a bow

What is took a bow the simple past of?
Took a bow is the simple past of take a bow.

Words near took a bow in the dictionary

  1. took a bath
  2. took a bead on
  3. took a beat
  4. took a bite
  5. took a bite out of
  6. took a bow
  7. took a break
  8. took a breath
  9. took a breather
  10. took a bullet
  11. took a chair

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: took a bow (page history and authors); take a bow (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: “took a bow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/took_a_bow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.