Word.ws English Dictionary

took the cake

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

Meaning of take the cake

Verb

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

  1. (US, colloquial, idiomatic) Used as an affirmation or accolade of someone occupying the top rank in a comparison or contest; to win or be the best (at).
    • Thanks! You guys take the cake.

Questions about took the cake

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

Words near took the cake in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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