Word.ws English Dictionary

took care of business

took care of business is the simple past of take care of business.

Meaning of take care of business

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To successfully perform a task or set of tasks which are very important for the accomplishment of a major objective.
    • Wars of succession are rarely pretty. The heirs apparent of Moghul emperors in 17th century India used to take care of business simply by murdering all their relatives the minute the ruling emperor started to look ill.1998 June 16, Paul McCann, “The warring after the knight before”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 29 Oct 2020
  2. (euphemistic, idiomatic) To urinate or defecate.
    • The facilities at the Esso Super Station, located on the outskirts of the town 180 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, have been named among the best places to take care of business in Canada.2016 September 20, Wallis Snowdon, “Edmonton: A luxurious loo: Whitecourt washrooms named national finalist”, in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada, retrieved 29 Oct 2020

Questions about took care of business

What is took care of business the simple past of?
Took care of business is the simple past of take care of business.

Words near took care of business in the dictionary

  1. took breath
  2. took by storm
  3. took by surprise
  4. took care
  5. took care of
  6. took care of business
  7. took charge
  8. took check
  9. took coals to Newcastle
  10. took cold
  11. took command

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: took care of business (page history and authors); take care of business (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 care of business.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/took_care_of_business. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.