Word.ws English Dictionary

took up the gauntlet

took up the gauntlet is the simple past of take up the gauntlet.

Meaning of take up the gauntlet

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To accept a challenge.
    • He doesn't read Greek, but he took up the gauntlet and did his best to understand the letter, anyway.

Questions about took up the gauntlet

What is took up the gauntlet the simple past of?
Took up the gauntlet is the simple past of take up the gauntlet.

Words near took up the gauntlet in the dictionary

  1. took up for
  2. took up residence
  3. took up the cudgel for
  4. took up the cudgels
  5. took up the gantlet
  6. took up the gauntlet
  7. took up the hatchet
  8. took up the mantle
  9. took up the slack
  10. took up with
  11. took upon oneself

Source and license

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