to take a leaf out of someone's book
1
4.1
- idiom
- UK
:
tomar ejemplo de
- If you want to improve your health, you should take a leaf out of my book and start exercising regularly.
Examples
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You wanna take a leaf out of her book, Paul.
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More people should take a leaf out of your book.
Blog text (17) -
I think we could all take a leaf out of his book and sit quietly with ourselves, nature, and look within.
Blog text (34) -
You could take a leaf out of Mike's book, do some sort of service for other people.
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They should have taken a leaf out of Joss Whedon's book here.
Blog text (24) -
Shane has replied to the comments (with some truly funny comebacks) without resorting to derogatory names, so Acro, you should take a leaf out of his book.
Blog text (30) -
To succeed in this business, it's wise to take a leaf out of successful entrepreneurs' book.
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She decided to take a leaf out of her mentor's book and apply the same strategies they used.
Synonyms
186
2.7
Copy the way someone speaks, looks, or acts
177
1.0
Do something the same way someone else does
107
2.6
To take an idea or method from someone else and use it as your own
59
6.0
To try to be as good as someone by copying what they do
33
3.8
To do the same thing someone else did
28
3.4
To do the same job as someone who came before you, for example a parent
2
3.5
Try to behave like someone you admire
Antonyms
How Imitative
Surface Forms
Morphology
take + a + leaf + out + of + someone's + book
Although the phrase is built from concrete, familiar words (take + leaf/page + out + book), the idiomatic sense 'imitate someone's example' depends on a metaphorical mapping (taking a page/leaf as an example) that is not directly deducible from the literal action of removing a page. A B1 learner who knows the constituents might plausibly infer a literal meaning or be uncertain, so some exposure is needed to connect the metaphor to the ‘imitate someone’ sense.
Etymology
The idiom take a leaf out of someone's book may come from the simple image of taking a page called a leaf from another person's book to copy what is written. So, it means 'to imitate someone's actions' or 'to copy someone's example'.