Word.ws English Dictionary

took the bait

took the bait is the simple past of take the bait.

Meaning of take the bait

Verb

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

  1. (literally) To nibble at bait on a hook.
    Synonyms:
    strike
  2. (figuratively) To be lured by an offer, flattery, or a provocation into doing something, especially something disadvantageous or dubious.
    • "I would like to first of all commend all of the police officers today. . . . They were in fact at various times provoked, and they didn't take the bait in any way, shape or form."1997 August 30, John Kifner, “Thousands Call on City Hall To Confront Police Brutality”, in New York Times, retrieved 08 May 2015
    Synonyms:
    bite, fall for it, rise to the bait

Questions about took the bait

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

Words near took the bait in the dictionary

  1. took something off someone's hands
  2. took something to
  3. took something to one's grave
  4. took stock
  5. took ten
  6. took the bait
  7. took the ball and ran with it
  8. took the bench
  9. took the biscuit
  10. took the bitter with the sweet
  11. took the bread out of someone's mouth

Source and license

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