taking over

verb

present participle of take over
1
as in substituting
to serve as a replacement usually for a time only I'll take over for her until she gets back from her morning break

Synonyms & Similar Words

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2
as in assuming
to take to or upon oneself took over the responsibility of caring for the animals

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in seizing
to take or make use of under a guise of authority but without actual right students protesting the war took over the college's radio station

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of taking over Soon after taking over the presidency, Bolsonaro cut the budgets for the National Cinema Agency (ANCINE) and the Audiovisual Sector Fund (FSA) by nearly 43%. — Rafa Sales Ross, Variety, 7 Oct. 2026 The county’s options for the facility range from holding Discovery Place in default and taking over the nature museum to accepting Discovery Place’s terms and giving the organization decades to repay the debt, staff said. — Mary Ramsey, Charlotte Observer, 7 Oct. 2026 Gudas was one of Bill Zito’s first acquisitions after taking over the Panthers’ front office. — Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 29 Sep. 2026 Here is how the wand stacks up against the mask and the panel taking over at-home wellness routines. — Hanna Wickes, Kansas City Star, 29 Sep. 2026 Uline, a box and packaging company based in Kenosha County, is taking over for Motorola placing its logo on every Bucks jersey in the 2026-27 season. — Ricardo Torres, jsonline.com, 22 Sep. 2026 In the long history of artists taking over spaces that once housed the creation of deadly weapons—the Park Avenue Armory in New York, the Arsenale in Venice—Da Corte’s studio was a cannonball factory during the Civil War. — Nate Freeman, Vanity Fair, 22 Sep. 2026 Whitley amassed a 52-16 record and won two region titles at Creekside before taking over at Stockbridge. — Jack Leo, AJC.com, 22 Sep. 2026 Club portfolio director Jeff Marks agreed, pointing to predictions earlier this year that Warsh would cut rates upon taking over as Fed chairman. — Natasha Abellard, CNBC, 15 Sep. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for taking over
  1. substituting
  2. assuming
  3. seizing
  4. standing in
  5. accepting
  6. converting
  7. filling in
  8. shouldering
Verb
  • That difference means substituting one for the other can change a dish’s character considerably.
    — Jessica Safavimehr, Southern Living, 24 Sep. 2026
  • The work demonstrates a way to combine a renewable waste material with nanoscale reinforcement rather than simply substituting one material for another.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 18 Sep. 2026
Definition of substituting
Verb
  • Skydance will have a mountain of debt, projected to be north of $80 billion, after assuming the debt burdens of previous M&A incurred by Paramount and WBD and raising new debt financing.
    — Todd Spangler, Variety, 2 Oct. 2026
  • In my hypothetical example, his 2026 fortune falls from $908 billion reported by Forbes to about $317 billion in my counterfactual 10 percent wealth tax example (again, assuming his wealth over the past 10 years grew smoothly).
    — Jeff Hoopes, Washington Post, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of assuming
Verb
  • Troop movements over the past couple of weeks indicate the group is concentrating on seizing the southwestern highlands, which could then open the way for a push toward the government’s capital, Aden.
    — Brady Knox, The Washington Examiner, 4 Oct. 2026
  • Counsel argued that seizing the ballots was necessary to preserve potential evidence before statutory destruction deadlines and to compare the total number of ballots with official vote records.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 25 Sep. 2026
Definition of seizing
Verb
  • Long decided to show Carl standing in a spotlight, wearing white boxers with red hearts, shielding Princess Donut.
    — Kansas City Star, Kansas City Star, 6 Oct. 2026
  • The film will shoot on location in New York City (for sequences chronicling her arrival by ship and her Broadway musicals), the Brazilian city of Maricá (standing in for Los Angeles) and Rio.
    — Marcelo Cajueiro, Variety, 6 Oct. 2026
Definition of standing in
Verb
  • Finally, in a twist on the classic Green Lantern oath from the comics, John personalizes the phrase with an emphasis on his newfound accepting of his fear.
    — Jordan Moreau, Variety, 5 Oct. 2026
  • But Searchlight hopes the music committee will consider accepting the one Collective in this case.
    — Anne Thompson, IndieWire, 3 Oct. 2026
Definition of accepting
Verb
  • The proposition is to connect China’s factories with its creator economy; Black Lake’s agents bridge the gap by converting ideas into designs, a 3D simulation, and industrial data sent to a factory.
    — Nicholas Gordon, Fortune, 2 Oct. 2026
  • Eventually, the interior fell largely vacant and the exterior acquired a second skin of billboards, effectively converting it into a scaffolding for ads.
    — Justin Davidson, Curbed, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of converting
Verb
  • At the age of sixteen, Renée was able to reunite with her parents in the United States and found employment as a comics artist, filling in for the many male artists drafted into service.
    — Gaby Iori October 7, Literary Hub, 7 Oct. 2026
  • Raster graphics, on the other hand, create pictures by filling in a grid of tiny pixels, an approach that was less suited to drawing the crisp lines needed to create this kind of perspective.
    — Mark J. P. Wolf, The Conversation, 28 Sep. 2026
Definition of filling in
Verb
  • Many are shouldering economic hardship, exposure to adversity and discrimination, family responsibilities, uncertainty about the future and social pressures.
    — Crystal Cederna, The Conversation, 25 Sep. 2026
  • Lilly died on January 25, leaving her father to grieve her loss while shouldering a mission to spread awareness about the cancer that took his daughter’s life.
    — Julia Vargas Jones, CNN Money, 20 Sep. 2026
Definition of shouldering

Browse Nearby Words

taking out
taking over
takings
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Cite this Entry

“Taking over.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/taking%20over. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.

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