What Does Take Out Mean?
Take out has a few everyday jobs.
- Bring something out of a place or a container. Take your book out of your bag.
- Invite someone somewhere and go with them. Dad took us out for pizza.
- Obtain an official thing, such as insurance or a library card. This one is more formal.
- Withdraw money from a bank account. She took ten pounds out.
- Buy cooked food to eat somewhere else. This is where English gets odd.
Please take out the rubbish.
Grandpa took us out for ice cream.
The word also has a few informal meanings that are not for classroom English, so we will skip them.
🗣️ Natural Examples
Can you take the plates out of the dishwasher?
Aunt Lena took the whole family out for dinner.
We ordered takeout and ate it on the floor.
I need to take some money out before the trip.
The magician took a rabbit out of his hat. Nobody clapped. The rabbit was very tired.
✂️ Can You Separate It?
Yes. It is separable.
With a noun, both places are fine.
✅ Take out the rubbish.
✅ Take the rubbish out.
With it, them, him, her, us, the small word goes at the end.
✅ Take it out.
✅ Take us out.
❌ Take out it.
❌ Take out us.
🛠️ How to Use It
- Past tense: took out. Past participle: taken out. The rubbish has been taken out.
- Out of: when you say where something came from, add of. Take your phone out of your pocket.
- People: if you take someone out, you invite them and usually pay.
- Food in American English: takeout means food you buy to eat elsewhere. We order takeout.
- Food in British English: British people say takeaway, or the verb take away. We got a takeaway.
⚠️ Common Mistakes
Put the pronoun in the middle.
❌ Please take out it.
✅ Please take it out.
Where something came from needs of.
❌ Take the book out the bag.
✅ Take the book out of the bag.
💬 In a Conversation
Priya: Shall we get takeout?
Tom: Do you mean takeaway?
Priya: Same pizza.
Tom: Different word. Same hunger.
💡 The OddLingo Trick
Ask: am I moving something out of a place, or am I moving a meal out of a restaurant?
- Out of a bag, pocket, box or house: take out.
- Out of a restaurant, with the food in a box: takeout (American) or takeaway (British).
👯 Similar Expressions
- Throw Away vs Throw Out: another out pair, this time for rubbish.
- Check out: another out phrasal verb, with its own meanings.
- take away: the British way to say you buy food to eat elsewhere. It can also mean remove something from someone.