take to task
"take-to-task" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“take to task” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To lecture, berate, admonish, or hold somebody accountable for his or her actions.
Corpus desk
Index EN-take-to-task · take to task · English
take to task · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | take to task |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “take to task” in English
Rare enough to double-check
take to task is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To lecture, berate, admonish, or hold somebody accountable for his or her actions.".
take to task doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is take to task, spelled T-A-K-E- -T-O- -T-A-S-K.
Definition
- 1To lecture, berate, admonish, or hold somebody accountable for his or her actions.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how take to task appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[W]hen any of his descendants chose to take him to task for the crudeness of his manners he was accustomed to look them coldly over and retort that things had come to a pretty pass when comparatively new people ventured to instruct the oldest of the old settlers as to what was or was not good form.
A dozen similar, but smaller footwarmers were made at Doncaster, without official sanction, and placed in the coaches of a train conveying some of the directors to London. Sturrock was taken to task by the chairman for having incurred this unauthorised expenditure, but before he left the meeting, the directors had ordered 200 footwarmers for public use.
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.