take a leaf out of someone's book

• borrow a leaf out of someone's book
• take a page out of someone's book
• rip a page out of someone's book
• take a page out of someone's playbook (rare)
• rip a page out of someone's playbook (rare)

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take a leaf out of someone's book (third-person singular simple present takes a leaf out of someone's book, present participle taking a leaf out of someone's book, simple past took a leaf out of someone's book, past participle taken a leaf out of someone's book)

1. (idiomatic) To adopt an idea or practice of another person.
   • 1927, M[ohandas] K[aramchand] Gandhi, chapter XVI, in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Translated from the Original in Gujarati, volume I, Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Navajivan Press, →OCLC:

     Let every youth take a leaf out of my book and make it a point to account for everything that comes into and goes out of his pocket, and like me he is sure to be a gainer in the end.