Word.ws English Dictionary

took the ball and ran with it

took the ball and ran with it is the simple past of take the ball and run with it.

Meaning of take the ball and run with it

Verb

take the ball and run with it (third-person singular simple present takes the ball and runs with it, present participle taking the ball and running with it, simple past took the ball and ran with it, past participle taken the ball and run with it)

  1. To continue working on something that someone else started, especially when one does so efficiently and successfully.

Questions about took the ball and ran with it

What is took the ball and ran with it the simple past of?
Took the ball and ran with it is the simple past of take the ball and run with it.

Words near took the ball and ran with it in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: took the ball and ran with it (page history and authors); take the ball and run with it (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 the ball and ran with it.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/took_the_ball_and_ran_with_it. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.