Word.ws English Dictionary

took the bull by the horns

took the bull by the horns is the simple past of take the bull by the horns.

Meaning of take the bull by the horns

Verb

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

  1. To deal with a matter in a direct manner, especially to confront a difficulty rather than avoid it.
    • Wordsworth has a system which disposes him to take the bull by the horns and offend public taste.1828 May, Sir Walter Scott, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott

Questions about took the bull by the horns

What is took the bull by the horns the simple past of?
Took the bull by the horns is the simple past of take the bull by the horns.

Words near took the bull by the horns in the dictionary

  1. took the bench
  2. took the biscuit
  3. took the bitter with the sweet
  4. took the bread out of someone's mouth
  5. took the Browns to the Super Bowl
  6. took the bull by the horns
  7. took the cake
  8. took the chair
  9. took the chill off
  10. took the Chiltern Hundreds
  11. took the count

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: took the bull by the horns (page history and authors); take the bull by the horns (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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