take up
verb
- start a habitual activity
- to occupy (space)
- to raise an issue or grievance
- to begin an action, state, or position (non-habitual)
Wiktionary
noun
- Alternative form of take-up.
“In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%.”
verb
- To lift; to raise.
“I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.”
“Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: […]”
- To lift; to raise.
“We're going to have to take up the floorboards.”
“It is hereby ordered, adjudged and decreed that a temporary writ of injunction issue, enjoining said defendant and all persons acting under or for it, from in any manner taking up, disturbing or interfering with the road-bed and track of said plaintiff so as to prevent the passage of cars thereon”
- To lift; to raise.
- To lift; to raise.
“If we take up the sleeves a bit, that shirt will look much better on you.”
- To lift; to raise.
“The reel automatically took up the slack.”
- To occupy; to consume (space or time).
“The books on finance take up three shelves.”
“All my time is taken up with looking after the kids.”
- To take, to assume (one’s appointed or intended place).
“She took up her post at the foot of the stairs.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“I’ve taken up knitting.”
“I wish to take up mathematics.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“He took up his post as assistant director last Friday.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“Let’s take this up with the manager.”
“While such social effects have not gone entirely unquestioned, most critical work on the topic of childhood innocence […] has focused on the regulation of children's sexual agency. Here, I take up the notion of childhood innocence to examine how, in the US context, it regulates race relations by producing a particular "childhood" that perpetuates White supremacy.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“I never said thank you for taking up our case.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“Shall we take them up on their offer to help us move?”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“They took up the cry of their oppressed compatriots.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“Let’s take up where we left off.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“So I’d imagine if they were to take up this system, or a similar system, we should be able to build quicker.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
“You have 30 minutes for the quiz. We’ll take up the answers at 1 o'clock.”
“Also, the grade 12’s in the class were also called down to the cafeteria from 9:30 am to about 9:50 am, so they missed class when I took up some of the worksheets.”
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
- To set about doing or dealing with (something).
- To arrest (a person).
“The police took up the suspect.”
- To reprove or reproach (a person).
“[…] he talked strangely of Mr. Law […] wearing a pair of stockings that a ploughman would not have picked off a dunghill; upon which last expression I took him up for saying that Mr. Law carried his expression beyond truth, when he himself exposed what he thought wrong with so much vivacity, and Dr. Hartley said that he thought there I had him; […]”
- To begin to support or patronize, to sponsor (a person), to adopt as protégé.