"take on water" meaning in English

See take on water in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-take on water.ogg [Australia] Forms: takes on water [present, singular, third-person], taking on water [participle, present], took on water [past], taken on water [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|take<,,took,taken> on water}} take on water (third-person singular simple present takes on water, present participle taking on water, simple past took on water, past participle taken on water)
  1. (of a ship, boat, or other watercraft) To slowly fill with water, as due to a leak or being washed by high waves; to begin to sink. Synonyms: take in water
    Sense id: en-take_on_water-en-verb-NerHc4XQ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 56 44
  2. (idiomatic, by extension) To be in an increasingly difficult or risky situation; to falter or begin to fail. Tags: broadly, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-take_on_water-en-verb-Bn0l1uEE

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for take on water meaning in English (3.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes on water",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took on water",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> on water"
      },
      "expansion": "take on water (third-person singular simple present takes on water, present participle taking on water, simple past took on water, past participle taken on water)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "56 44",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012 January 31, Charlie Cooper, Simon Rice, “How six would-be record-breakers ended up in seriously deep water”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "The skipper, Matt Craughwell, said their boat had begun to take on water after being tossed, stern upwards, by huge waves.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To slowly fill with water, as due to a leak or being washed by high waves; to begin to sink."
      ],
      "id": "en-take_on_water-en-verb-NerHc4XQ",
      "links": [
        [
          "leak",
          "leak"
        ],
        [
          "wave",
          "wave"
        ],
        [
          "sink",
          "sink"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "boat; or other watercraft; boat; or other watercraft",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(of a ship, boat, or other watercraft) To slowly fill with water, as due to a leak or being washed by high waves; to begin to sink."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of a ship"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "84 16",
          "word": "take in water"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1994 January 2, Peter Passell, “Clear Today; Tomorrow, Who Knows?; Catch '94”, in New York Times, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "While the heartland is chugging right along, the economies of Southern California and New England are still taking on water.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 June 22, Jennifer Rubin, “Why defend Obama’s abuse of executive privilege?”, in Washington Post, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "Democrats on Capitol Hill . . . are struggling not to go down with the Obama campaign (which is taking on water at an alarming rate).",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 March 26, Mike Ozanian, “Baseball Team Values 2014 Led By New York Yankees At $2.5 Billion”, in Forbes, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "The team refinanced $250 million of debt and is no longer taking on water under the leadership of GM Sandy Alderson.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be in an increasingly difficult or risky situation; to falter or begin to fail."
      ],
      "id": "en-take_on_water-en-verb-Bn0l1uEE",
      "links": [
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "risky",
          "risky"
        ],
        [
          "falter",
          "falter"
        ],
        [
          "fail",
          "fail"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, by extension) To be in an increasingly difficult or risky situation; to falter or begin to fail."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-take on water.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5a/En-au-take_on_water.ogg/En-au-take_on_water.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/En-au-take_on_water.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "take on water"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "takes on water",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taking on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "took on water",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "taken on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "take<,,took,taken> on water"
      },
      "expansion": "take on water (third-person singular simple present takes on water, present participle taking on water, simple past took on water, past participle taken on water)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012 January 31, Charlie Cooper, Simon Rice, “How six would-be record-breakers ended up in seriously deep water”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "The skipper, Matt Craughwell, said their boat had begun to take on water after being tossed, stern upwards, by huge waves.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To slowly fill with water, as due to a leak or being washed by high waves; to begin to sink."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "leak",
          "leak"
        ],
        [
          "wave",
          "wave"
        ],
        [
          "sink",
          "sink"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "boat; or other watercraft; boat; or other watercraft",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(of a ship, boat, or other watercraft) To slowly fill with water, as due to a leak or being washed by high waves; to begin to sink."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "of a ship"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1994 January 2, Peter Passell, “Clear Today; Tomorrow, Who Knows?; Catch '94”, in New York Times, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "While the heartland is chugging right along, the economies of Southern California and New England are still taking on water.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 June 22, Jennifer Rubin, “Why defend Obama’s abuse of executive privilege?”, in Washington Post, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "Democrats on Capitol Hill . . . are struggling not to go down with the Obama campaign (which is taking on water at an alarming rate).",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 March 26, Mike Ozanian, “Baseball Team Values 2014 Led By New York Yankees At $2.5 Billion”, in Forbes, retrieved 2016-01-08",
          "text": "The team refinanced $250 million of debt and is no longer taking on water under the leadership of GM Sandy Alderson.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be in an increasingly difficult or risky situation; to falter or begin to fail."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "risky",
          "risky"
        ],
        [
          "falter",
          "falter"
        ],
        [
          "fail",
          "fail"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, by extension) To be in an increasingly difficult or risky situation; to falter or begin to fail."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-take on water.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5a/En-au-take_on_water.ogg/En-au-take_on_water.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/En-au-take_on_water.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "take in water"
    }
  ],
  "word": "take on water"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.