take care

verb

"take-care" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“take care” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
9
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To be cautious, careful or prudent.

Corpus desk

Index EN-take-care · take care · English

take care · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "T" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for take care
PropertyValue
Headwordtake care
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “take care” in English

take carefalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

take care is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Zero misspellings are on record for take care in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is take care, spelled T-A-K-E- -C-A-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    To be cautious, careful or prudent.
  2. 2
    To mind, or be in charge of something.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how take care appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Take care when you’re crossing the crosswalk.
  2. Take care that you don't fall!

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "take care"?
"take care" is spelled T-A-K-E- -C-A-R-E.
What does "take care" mean?
As a verb, "take care" means: To be cautious, careful or prudent.
What language does "take care" come from?
"take care" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list