Takeover

How to spell takeover

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce takeover

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does takeover mean?

1. nounThe act of gaining control of something, especially one company buying another or one group assuming command.

Takeover in a sentence

• The rival firm launched a hostile takeover of the smaller manufacturer.

• Shareholders voted to reject the takeover bid at the annual meeting.

Where does takeover come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound built from two very old English-language building blocks. The verb 'take' came into English from Old Norse 'taka', meaning to grasp or seize, brought over by Norse settlers and gradually replacing the native word 'nim'. The element 'over' descends from Old English 'ofer', meaning above or across, a word shared widely across the Germanic languages. The two were fused into a noun in the late nineteenth century, originally describing the act of taking over a task or a duty. The familiar financial sense, one company seizing control of another, became common only in the twentieth century, and the spelling trap is purely about closing the gap: it is one solid word, not 'take over' the verb phrase or a hyphenated 'take-over'.

How the word is built

• take (to seize, grasp)
• over (across, beyond) compounded into a single noun