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Glite Dictionary
🏠 To give shelter ✂️ To make smaller 🧠 To understand 🌱 To absorb 🏙️ To visit 💵 To earn 🕵️ To deceive 🍽️ To eat or drink
to take in

to take in

43 4.9
Make a piece of clothing smaller by sewing it
  • phrasal verb
  • /teɪk ɪn/
translation icon : entallar
  • While you're on the table, why don't I take in a tuck here and a tuck there?

So even if you take in a menswear and women's wear button up shirt nearly identical, the women's wear will be more expensive to clean.

Examples

  • One of the ladies took your pants in.

    The Postman (1997)

  • Actually, I do think that needs to be taken in a little bit at the top, though.

    A Housekeeper's Revenge (2016)

  • So I bought it and I got it taken in and it's still now too big, but I feel like it's fine.

  • When he wanted to get his one good sports jacket taken in, she'd asked, "Why spend the money?"

    Fiction book (2000)

  • So even if you take in a menswear and women's wear button up shirt nearly identical, the women's wear will be more expensive to clean.

    Zoe Hong

  • I need to take in the sides of this dress so it fits me better.

  • After several adjustments, the tailor could finally take in my jacket to make it look sharp.

  • Since the shirt was too loose, she decided to take in the seams for a better fit.

Synonyms

to gather in
vsto take in
16 4.3

Fold or pull cloth so it takes up less space

alters clothing by sewing to make items narrower rather than just saving space

Antonyms

to expand
805 2.5

To grow larger in size, amount, or importance

to let out
8 3.8

Make clothing larger by sewing so it fits more comfortably

How Small

to remake
52 3.5
to resize
  • Specialized
11 3.2
to take in
43 4.9
to alter
493 2.5

Surface Forms

take in infinitive
taking in present participle
takes in third person singular
took in past
taken in past participle

Morphology

take + in

The phrasal verb 'take in' here uses take (to receive/bring) + in (into/within) to mean 'absorb or experience' — as in 'take in the sights' = 'see/absorb the attractions'. The connection is metaphorical and relies on particle-verb usage that is not fully compositional or universally predictable for B1 learners, so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Take in (clothes) comes from the tailor's action of actually taking cloth in toward the inside of a garment and sewing it smaller, so the piece of clothing becomes narrower. That's why it now means 'to make a garment smaller'.