Take the sting out of
Lessen the severity or unpleasantness of something, as in That senior citizen discount took the sting out of the airfares. [ Mid-1800s ]
Read Also:
- Take the trouble
see: go to the trouble
- Take the wrong way
Also, take amiss . Misunderstand, misinterpret, especially so as to take offense. For example, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but you have to give others a chance to speak , or Please don’t take their criticism amiss; they mean well . The variant dates from the late 1300s. Also see […]
- Take things easy
take the starch out of
- Take umbrage
Feel resentment, take offense, as in Aunt Agatha is quick to take umbrage at any suggestion to do things differently. This expression features one of the rare surviving uses of umbrage, which now means “resentment” but comes from the Latin umbra, for “shade,” and presumably alludes to the “shadow” of displeasure. [ Late 1600s ]
- Take-up
noun 1. the act of taking up. 2. Machinery. uptake (def 3). any of various devices for taking up slack, winding in, or compensating for the looseness of parts due to wear. 3. the contraction of fabric resulting from the wet operations in the finishing process, especially fulling.