Take is Norse, and its arrival is a small drama. Old English had a perfectly good verb for the job, niman, which survived into Middle English as nimen and then died. Late Old English borrowed tacan from Old Norse taka, and by the end of the Middle English period it had displaced the native word entirely.
That is a striking thing for a language to do. Take is one of the most frequent verbs in English, and languages do not usually borrow at that level — but the Danish settlement put Norse and English speakers in the same villages for generations, and the two languages were close enough that words moved freely. The result is that a great deal of the plainest English vocabulary is Scandinavian: take, want, die, knife, law, skin, sky, they, them, their. The Germanic root may have meant "to touch" originally.
take (v.) Middle English taken , from late Old English tacan "to grip, seize by force, lay hold of," from a Scandinavian source (such as Old Norse taka "take, grasp, lay hold," past tense tok , past participle tekinn ; also compare Swedish ta , past participle tagit ). This is reconstructed to be from Proto-Germanic *takan- (source also of Middle Low German tacken , Middle Dutch taken , Gothic tekan "to touch"), from Germanic root *tak- "to take," which is of uncertain origin, perhaps originally meaning "to touch" [OED, 1989]. The weakened sense of "get to oneself, get in hand, obtain, receive, acquire" is by late 12c. As the principal verb for "to take," it gradually replaced Middle English nimen , from Old English niman , from the usual West Germanic verb, *nemanan (source of German nehmen , Dutch nemen ; see nimble and compare nim ). OED calls take "one of the elemental words of the language;" take up alone has 55 varieties of meaning in that dictionary's 1989 edition. Already in Middle English one could take pity, charge, a nap, hostages, heed, the veil, fire, an answer, a concubine, a bath, pains, prisoners, place, possession, part, leave, advice, a breath, a spouse, a chance, comfort, flight, courage . Compare the range of senses in Latin capere "to take." In the sense of "take effect, work," earliest in reference to transplants or grafts (mid-15c.). As "obtain (one's image) by drawing or painting" from c. 1600, hence the later use for photographic images. To take after "resemble" is from 1550s. Take that! accompanying a blow, etc., is by early 15c. You can't take it with you (i.e. riches, to the grave) is the title of a popular Kaufman and Hart play from 1936; the idea in the quip is at least a century older. To take apart "dismantle" is by 1936. To take five "go on a five-minute break" is by 1929, from the approximate time it takes to smoke a cigarette. Take it easy is recorded by 1880; the phrase take it or leave it is recorded from 1897. Colloquial figurative phrase what it takes "the right qualities" (for success) is by 1858. To take it "absorb punishment" is by 1862; take the rap "accept (undeserved) punishment" is from 1930 (compare rap (n.)); take the fall in a similar sense is by 1942 (compare fall guy , by 1906). take (n.) "that which is taken," in any sense, 1650s, from take (v.). The movie-making sense of "continuous section of film recorded at one time" is by 1916. The specific sense of "money taken in" is by 1850 in reference to church collections (by 1931 in reference to money taken in from a single performance). The criminal sense of "money acquired by theft" is from 1888. The verb take in the sense of "cheat, defraud" is attested from 1920. On the take "amenable to bribery" is by 1930. also from 1650s
take came in through Old Norse, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
What gives it away on the page
| core vocabulary that isn't Old English | Borrowing pronouns is rare and marks deep contact, not fashion.they, them, their, are, take, want, die, knife, window, law |
Old Norse in the spelling guide · guess another word's family