See take the fall on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes the fall",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "taking the fall",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took the fall",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken the fall",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "take a fall",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "<,,took,taken>"
},
"expansion": "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)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "fall guy"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "scapegoat"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Sports",
"orig": "en:Sports",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "52 48",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "49 51",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "90 10",
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Boxing",
"orig": "en:Boxing",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To willingly lose a match, as in a fixed fight."
],
"id": "en-take_the_fall-en-verb-hd6HB9AK",
"links": [
[
"sports",
"sports"
],
[
"willingly",
"willingly"
],
[
"lose",
"lose"
],
[
"match",
"match"
],
[
"fixed",
"fixed"
],
[
"fight",
"fight"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal, sports, especially boxing) To willingly lose a match, as in a fixed fight."
],
"tags": [
"especially",
"idiomatic",
"informal"
],
"topics": [
"boxing",
"government",
"hobbies",
"lifestyle",
"martial-arts",
"military",
"politics",
"sports",
"war"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "52 48",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "43 57",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English light verb constructions",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "49 51",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "43 57",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "36 64",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
22,
35
]
],
"text": "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.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
126,
139
]
],
"ref": "2010 June 8, “Economy Watch: BP CEO Tony Hayward to testify on Capitol Hill next week”, in Washington Post:",
"text": "You can take the president at his word after last week's sacking of MMS director Liz Birnbaum, the first in the government to take the fall for the BP oil spill disaster",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
105,
118
]
],
"ref": "2026 June 18, Will Neal, “Trump Trolled for Biggest ‘Surrender’ at Versailles Since Versailles”, in The Daily Beast:",
"text": "Trump has called this week’s deal “very strong,” even as he joked that his Vice President JD Vance would take the fall if it doesn’t work out.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To bear the blame or punishment for another person's failure or misdeed, either intentionally or not."
],
"id": "en-take_the_fall-en-verb-1gaTjMck",
"links": [
[
"bear",
"bear"
],
[
"blame",
"blame"
],
[
"punishment",
"punishment"
],
[
"failure",
"failure"
],
[
"misdeed",
"misdeed"
],
[
"intentionally",
"intentionally"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal) To bear the blame or punishment for another person's failure or misdeed, either intentionally or not."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"sense": "bear the blame",
"word": "take the rap"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-take the fall.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/68/En-au-take_the_fall.ogg/En-au-take_the_fall.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/En-au-take_the_fall.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
]
}
],
"word": "take the fall"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English light verb constructions",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"en:Boxing"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes the fall",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "taking the fall",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took the fall",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken the fall",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "take a fall",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "<,,took,taken>"
},
"expansion": "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)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "fall guy"
},
{
"word": "scapegoat"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English informal terms",
"en:Sports"
],
"glosses": [
"To willingly lose a match, as in a fixed fight."
],
"links": [
[
"sports",
"sports"
],
[
"willingly",
"willingly"
],
[
"lose",
"lose"
],
[
"match",
"match"
],
[
"fixed",
"fixed"
],
[
"fight",
"fight"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal, sports, especially boxing) To willingly lose a match, as in a fixed fight."
],
"tags": [
"especially",
"idiomatic",
"informal"
],
"topics": [
"boxing",
"government",
"hobbies",
"lifestyle",
"martial-arts",
"military",
"politics",
"sports",
"war"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English informal terms",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
22,
35
]
],
"text": "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.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
126,
139
]
],
"ref": "2010 June 8, “Economy Watch: BP CEO Tony Hayward to testify on Capitol Hill next week”, in Washington Post:",
"text": "You can take the president at his word after last week's sacking of MMS director Liz Birnbaum, the first in the government to take the fall for the BP oil spill disaster",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
105,
118
]
],
"ref": "2026 June 18, Will Neal, “Trump Trolled for Biggest ‘Surrender’ at Versailles Since Versailles”, in The Daily Beast:",
"text": "Trump has called this week’s deal “very strong,” even as he joked that his Vice President JD Vance would take the fall if it doesn’t work out.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To bear the blame or punishment for another person's failure or misdeed, either intentionally or not."
],
"links": [
[
"bear",
"bear"
],
[
"blame",
"blame"
],
[
"punishment",
"punishment"
],
[
"failure",
"failure"
],
[
"misdeed",
"misdeed"
],
[
"intentionally",
"intentionally"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal) To bear the blame or punishment for another person's failure or misdeed, either intentionally or not."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-take the fall.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/68/En-au-take_the_fall.ogg/En-au-take_the_fall.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/En-au-take_the_fall.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"sense": "bear the blame",
"word": "take the rap"
}
],
"word": "take the fall"
}
Download raw JSONL data for take the fall meaning in All languages combined (3.3kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.