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Glite Dictionary
to take forever

to take forever

65 3.4
Lasts much longer than expected
  • phrasal verb
  • /teɪk fɔːrˈɛvər/
  • Informal
translation icon : tardar una eternidad
  • The meals were usually three- or four-course affairs and seemed to take forever.

You know, brush is like really taking forever to do this though.

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Examples

  • The water is freezing and taking forever to warm up.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • A marble bathtub is a beautiful thing, but it takes forever for hot water to heat it up.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • And it just would have taken forever to drive with that car, you know?

  • This thing takes forever to turn on.

    Devil's Due (2014)

  • - Man, this is taking forever.

    Shrunken Heads (1994)

  • So this eye shadow is really pretty, but it takes forever to build up the color.

  • I'm just in the cab right now and it's just taking forever because New York traffic is not our friend.

  • Past experience proves that such an approach takes forever and rarely produces anything of value.

    Academic text (2000)

  • The bathtub was in the kitchen and took forever to fill up.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The package was delayed, so it will take forever to arrive.

Synonyms

to drag
vsto take forever
133 3.4

To continue slowly in a way that makes time feel long

is about an extremely long time not only unnecessary delay
to take one's sweet time
vsto take forever
  • Informal
3 7.5

Do something slowly on purpose and without hurry

is long but not always intentional or unhurried
to drag on forever
vsto take forever
  • Informal
1 5.2

To continue much longer than expected and make people bored

is an objectively extremely long duration rather than just a feeling

Antonyms

to hurry
∞ 1.0

To move or act quickly because there is little time

to make quick work of
  • Informal
4 3.9

Finish a task quickly and well

How Long

to take forever
  • Informal
65 3.4
to take time
286 2.3

Surface Forms

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

Morphology

take + forever

The meaning is directly compositional: 'take' (require time) combined with 'forever' (an endlessly long time) yields the sense of requiring an extremely long period. This hyperbolic, literal extension is cross-linguistically common and predictable, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Take forever uses the word forever, which gives the strong image of time that never ends. So when people say take forever, they mean 'to take a very long time'.