to take down
40
3.4
- phrasal verb
- /teɪk daʊn/
:
derribar
- After years of neglect, the city decided to take down the abandoned house for safety reasons.
Tiger Lily would have to be completely ripped apart, taken down, deconstructed.
- Tiger Lily would have to be completely ripped apart, taken down, deconstructed.
- But what they need to do is fix that infrastructure, including the fences that were taken down and the access roads.
- We were going to go take down this apartment building, like a big apartment building.
- You know, I read an article once about elephants and these elephants were engaged in a fence to area and then they took the fence down.
Examples
-
So we proceeded to move forward and have the house taken down and build something new.
-
We've got to take down every tree on this property plenty pronto if we want that bonus.
Fiction book (2002) -
We were going to go take down this apartment building, like a big apartment building.
-
Can we just keep it simple and take the tree down?
-
First of all, we took down the old mini bath from the toilet.
-
We're going to take down all the drawings, and we're going to make a great big vacation spot.
Fiction book (2002) -
You better just take the whole thing down and redo it.
-
The fences the government once put up around Chentcherere were taken down and used as farm implements by locals.
Academic text (2007) -
The crew worked all day to take down the old building to make room for a new park.
-
They had to take down the derelict warehouse before they could start the new construction project.
Synonyms
123
3.7
To destroy a building or other structure completely
81
3.7
To make land or a building flat with the ground
63
4.6
Knock down a building or other large structure completely
57
3.2
Make a building or wall fall down suddenly
54
3.7
Completely destroy a building or large structure
17
7.1
To completely destroy a building or area so nothing is left
15
3.3
Move something or someone from a higher to a lower place, for example land an aircraft
7
3.8
To demolish a building so it is flat on the ground
1
6.0
To completely destroy a building so nothing remains above ground
To completely tear down a building or town so nothing is left
Antonyms
How Completely
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to remove or dismantle' is directly derivable from combining 'take' (to grasp/remove) with the directional particle 'down' (indicating lowering or removal); this fits the common verb+particle compositional pattern in English. Because the sense is literal and follows a cross-linguistically common motion/placement logic, an average B1 learner who knows the constituents would likely infer the meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Take down in this sense comes from the literal act of taking a building down, lowering it piece by piece until it is level with the ground. That's why it means 'to demolish or dismantle a structure'.