Word.ws English Dictionary

took aback

took aback is the simple past of take aback.

Meaning of take aback

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To surprise or shock; to discomfit.
    • I was rather taken aback by his angry reply.
  2. (passive, usually) Of a ship: to catch it with the sails aback suddenly.

Questions about took aback

What is took aback the simple past of?
Took aback is the simple past of take aback.

Words near took aback in the dictionary

  1. took a wicket
  2. took a wife
  3. took a wiz
  4. took a wizz
  5. took a wrong turn at Albuquerque
  6. took aback
  7. took account of
  8. took across
  9. took action
  10. took advantage of
  11. took after

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: took aback (page history and authors); take aback (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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