to take one's medicine
5
6.1
- idiom
- Informal
:
aceptar las consecuencias
- Now it's time to take your medicine.
- take your medicine this morning
Examples
-
Don't forget to take your medicine.
-
You need to take your medicine
-
You gotta take your medicine and...
-
And now it's time to take your medicine.
-
Did you take your medicine?
-
Are you taking your medicine?
Fiction book (1992) -
You're gonna take your medicine.
-
Sometimes in life, you just have to take one's medicine and face the consequences of your decisions.
-
After breaking the rules, he knew he had to take his medicine and accept the punishment without complaining.
-
When you make a mistake, it's important to take your medicine gracefully and learn from the experience.
Synonyms
13
6.7
To receive punishment or bad results for doing wrong
9
7.7
Accept the bad result of something you did
5
6.8
To accept an unpleasant situation without complaining
2
8.1
To accept unpleasant results and sometimes punishment for something you did
To accept the bad results of your own choices
To be punished for something you did wrong
Antonyms
How Accepting
- Informal
5
6.1
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal composition 'take + one's + medicine' suggests consuming an unpleasant but necessary remedy, and this metaphorical extension to 'accept punishment or unpleasant consequences' is reasonably inferable from the constituents. However, the specific pragmatic nuance of accepting blame or punishment is conventionalized and not fully predictable for a B1 learner without prior exposure, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The idiom take one's medicine comes from the literal idea of taking a bitter medicine: you must swallow something unpleasant to get better. That's why it now means 'accept punishment or unpleasant results without complaint'.