Taken

How to spell taken

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce taken

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does taken mean?

1. verbThe past participle of take: having been grasped, removed, accepted, or carried away.
2. adjectiveAlready claimed, reserved, or occupied, so not available.

Taken in a sentence

• verb

  By the time she arrived, all the documents had been taken from the desk.

• adjective

  Every seat in the front row was already taken when we walked in.

• verb

  He had taken the early train to avoid the rush.

• adjective

  That parking space is taken, so try the next street.

Where does taken come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is the past participle of the verb 'take', which English borrowed from the Old Norse word taka, meaning 'to grasp, lay hold of, or seize'. Viking settlers brought the word into late Old English, where it gradually pushed aside the older native verb niman that had previously meant 'to take'. The strong-verb pattern gave us the vowel change of take, took, taken, with the past participle keeping the old Germanic '-en' ending still seen in words like 'broken' and 'spoken'. Over the centuries the meaning widened far beyond physical grasping, so today we speak of seats being taken, advice being taken, and a person being quite taken with an idea. The spelling stays simple because the silent-e of 'take' is dropped before the '-en' is added.

How the word is built

• take (from Old Norse taka: to grasp, seize)
• -en (past participle suffix)