Word.ws English Dictionary

took the fall

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

Meaning of take the fall

Verb

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

  1. (especially, idiomatic, informal) To willingly lose a match, as in a fixed fight.
  2. (idiomatic, informal) To bear the blame or punishment for another person's failure or misdeed, either intentionally or not.
    • It was good of him to take the fall for you like that, I just wonder if he will come out of this one unscathed.
    Synonyms:
    take the rap

Questions about took the fall

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

Words near took the fall in the dictionary

  1. took the count
  2. took the coward's way out
  3. took the cure
  4. took the easy way out
  5. took the edge off
  6. took the fall
  7. took the fifth
  8. took the front seat
  9. took the game to
  10. took the gap
  11. took the gilt off the gingerbread

Source and license

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