take something to

English

Verb

take something to (third-person singular simple present takes (something) to, present participle taking (something) to, simple past took (something) to, past participle taken (something) to)

1. To apply (some instrument or implement) to (something else, to undertake a task or attack upon it, usually vigorously).
   • 1973, Albert J. Reiss, The Police and the Public, page 44:

     A lot of officers when they knock off a still will take an axe to the barrels.

   • 1996, Sports Illustrated Editors, Golf, →ISBN:

     The last guy to take a mower to this place must have been General MacArthur. It was as bad as any course in the U.S., yet it cost $100 to play on Saturdays. Doesn't matter. The golfers started lining up at two in the morning.

   • 2009, John Ridley, A Conversation with the Mann:

     Sometimes someone would take a wrench to a fire hydrant, jam a crate up to its nozzle, turning the whole of it into a fountain for us kids to splosh around and play in.

   • 2010 September 7, Rowan Coleman, The Home for Broken Hearts, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 334:

     It's quite something that I'm standing here with the door open, and that I'm thinking what fun it would be to take a trimmer to that grass and sort my plants from the weeds. That's progress—after all, I haven't got my hands dirty in […]

   • 2016 March 23, Scott K. Taylor, A Linking of Heaven and Earth: […] , Routledge, →ISBN:

     He recounted the story of a heretic who took a sword to a statue of Mary, which began to bleed. […]

   • 2017 May 8, Tamara Morgan, The World is a Stage, Tamara Morgan, →ISBN:

     It turns one of the dickheads Nick took a baseball bat to is the nephew of a hick cop on the force out there.

   • 2019 March 21, Cathy Bramley, A Seaside Escape, Orion, →ISBN:

     […] Theo took a scythe to the long grass in an attempt to transform the jungle into a more guest-friendly garden.

   • 2020 November 10, Clyde Wright, Baseball the Wright Way, Page Publishing Inc, →ISBN:

     ... and I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to open it and take the film out of it, so I just took his camera and laid it down on the ground and took a baseball bat to it. That camera didn't work after I took the bat to it.

   • 2022 November 15, Jennifer L. Armentrout, A Light in the Flame: A Flesh and Fire Novel, Blue Box Press, →ISBN:

     "Fates, there were times when I honestly would've preferred to take a dagger to my ears than listen to him. But Kolis...he could be deceptively charming when he wanted to be. Enough that you started to relax around him,  […]"

   • 2023 April 25, Scott Brickell, The Business Behind the Song: Navigating a Career in the Music Industry, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

     Our Constitution was a blank sheet of paper before someone took a pencil to it.

2. To experience application of (some instrument or implement).

   I used to do field lexicography, but then I took an arrow to the knee on North Sentinel Island.

3. To suffer (an injury or detriment) to person or property.

   Twitter took a major blow to its reputation

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take.

   Let's take the presents to the community center.

   • 2012 February 17, Clare Revell, After the Fire, Pelican Ventures Book Group, →ISBN:

     And this from the bloke who took a phone to dinner in case we broke down on the way from the bedrooms to the dining room.

See also

• take to