See take the fifth on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "A reference to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which, among other provisions (e.g., prohibition of double jeopardy), protects individuals from being compelled to testify against themselves (i.e., self-incrimination).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes the fifth",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "taking the fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took the fifth",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken the fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "take the Fifth",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "<,,took,taken>"
},
"expansion": "take the fifth (third-person singular simple present takes the fifth, present participle taking the fifth, simple past took the fifth, past participle taken the fifth)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Five",
"orig": "en:Five",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Law",
"orig": "en:Law",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
63,
77
]
],
"text": "If you ask me who ate the last of the ice cream, I will simply take the fifth.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
105,
119
]
],
"ref": "2022 July 8, Barton Gellman, quoting Michael Flynn, “What Happened to Michael Flynn?”, in The Atlantic:",
"text": "“Do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified morally?” she asked. Flynn squinted, truculent. “Take the Fifth,” he said.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To decline to comment, especially on grounds that it might be incriminating."
],
"id": "en-take_the_fifth-en-verb-jN0PWGFL",
"links": [
[
"decline",
"decline"
],
[
"comment",
"comment"
],
[
"incriminating",
"incriminating"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To decline to comment, especially on grounds that it might be incriminating."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "no comment"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "plead the Fifth"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-take the fifth.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/81/En-au-take_the_fifth.ogg/En-au-take_the_fifth.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/En-au-take_the_fifth.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
]
}
],
"word": "take the fifth"
}
{
"etymology_text": "A reference to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which, among other provisions (e.g., prohibition of double jeopardy), protects individuals from being compelled to testify against themselves (i.e., self-incrimination).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "takes the fifth",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "taking the fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "took the fifth",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "taken the fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "take the Fifth",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "<,,took,taken>"
},
"expansion": "take the fifth (third-person singular simple present takes the fifth, present participle taking the fifth, simple past took the fifth, past participle taken the fifth)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "no comment"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"en:Five",
"en:Law"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
63,
77
]
],
"text": "If you ask me who ate the last of the ice cream, I will simply take the fifth.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
105,
119
]
],
"ref": "2022 July 8, Barton Gellman, quoting Michael Flynn, “What Happened to Michael Flynn?”, in The Atlantic:",
"text": "“Do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified morally?” she asked. Flynn squinted, truculent. “Take the Fifth,” he said.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To decline to comment, especially on grounds that it might be incriminating."
],
"links": [
[
"decline",
"decline"
],
[
"comment",
"comment"
],
[
"incriminating",
"incriminating"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To decline to comment, especially on grounds that it might be incriminating."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "plead the Fifth"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-take the fifth.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/81/En-au-take_the_fifth.ogg/En-au-take_the_fifth.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/En-au-take_the_fifth.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
]
}
],
"word": "take the fifth"
}
Download raw JSONL data for take the fifth meaning in All languages combined (2.3kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). 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.