to take to be
- phrasal verb
- /teɪk tə bi/
- As such, the public was taken to be both critical and rational.
- take to be true
- often taken to be
- generally taken to be
Much of what we take to be real is, is, is fictions.
- Much of what we take to be real is, is, is fictions.
- Where is what is taken to be foundational or most important?
- And yet the, you know, the moral in many cultures is to loudly back that what I take to be the side that's, you know, doing this.
- Here's what I take to be the climactic paragraph in in Bohr's paper.
- We'll just have a lot of zeros appendage just so because M is taken to be log S so not to confuse.
- So, but the idea is that we're going to start with objects in space and time that we take to be fundamental reality and then boot up a theory of consciousness.
- And ultimately give people, whether it's, you know, simple actions or tools that they can take to be part of the larger change.
Examples
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I've seen what it takes to be a top spy, and I think I can be of better use to the world by just being the best me.
-
However, none presents what we take to be a complete picture.
Academic text (1999) -
Then he said something in his own language that she took to be a thank you.
Fiction book (1995) -
Which one of those do you take to be what morality demands?
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What I took to be deep and mysterious has just turned out to be really sad and unhappy.
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The center of the room was taken up by what Laurent took to be a large swimming pool.
Fiction book (2001) -
There followed a brief conversation in what I took to be Romanian.
Fiction book (2001) -
Our true potential lies considerably beyond what we have taken to be our norm.
Academic text (1991) -
Here's what I take to be the climactic paragraph in in Bohr's paper.
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Many people take to be the news true without verifying the facts.
Synonyms
See someone or something in a certain way
To think of someone or something as a certain thing
To think someone is a certain type of person, often wrongly
To think of someone or something in a certain way
To think of someone or something in a certain way
To have respect for someone because of what they do
Thought by many people to have a certain quality or to have done something
Antonyms
How Certain
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'take' in the sense 'regard/interpret' combined with the infinitival 'to be' yields 'regard/suppose X to be Y'. This is a regular, cross-linguistic pattern (compare 'consider X to be' / 'considerar X como'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings should be able to derive the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The phrase take to be is like putting a name tag on someone: you take a person and use be to call them 'doctor' or 'sister'. That's why it means 'to regard someone as' or 'to assume'.