Word.ws English Dictionary

took one for the team

took one for the team is the simple past of take one for the team.

Meaning of take one for the team

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To accept some chore, hardship, or punishment for the sake of one's friends or colleagues.
    • [Casey Newton:] Yes, Arijeta, you really did take one for the team on this one, I have to say.2026 March 6, Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, “OpenAI’s Fog of War + Betting on Iran + Hard Fork Review of Slop”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Questions about took one for the team

What is took one for the team the simple past of?
Took one for the team is the simple past of take one for the team.

Words near took one for the team in the dictionary

  1. took on strength
  2. took on the chin
  3. took on trust
  4. took on water
  5. took one day at a time
  6. took one for the team
  7. took one up
  8. took one's ball and went home
  9. took one's business elsewhere
  10. took one's chance
  11. took one's courage in both hands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: took one for the team (page history and authors); take one for the team (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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