uptake

From Middle English uptaken (“to take up, lift”), partial calque of earlier Middle English upnimen (“to take up, lift”), equivalent to up- +‎ take. Compare Swedish upptaga, uppta (“to take up”).

• (noun) IPA^(key): /ˈʌpteɪk/

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• (verb) IPA^(key): /ʌpˈteɪk/

uptake (countable and uncountable, plural uptakes)

1. Understanding; comprehension.
2. Absorption, especially of food or nutrient by an organism.
3. The act of lifting or taking up.
4. (dated) A chimney.
   • 1951 January, “Notes and News: New Roof for Cricklewood M.P.D.”, in Railway Magazine, page 67:

     The design provides for continuous smoke troughs of reinforced concrete, vented by circular uptakes, and the turntable area will be covered, using precast reinforced concrete bars down both sides of each track.

5. (dated) The upcast pipe from the smokebox of a steam boiler towards the chimney.

• on the uptake
• quick on the uptake
• slow on the uptake
• reuptake

uptake (third-person singular simple present uptakes, present participle uptaking, simple past uptook, past participle uptaken)

1. (archaic) To take up, to lift.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     He hearkned to his reason, and the childe
     Vptaking, to the Palmer gaue to beare [...].

2. To absorb, as food or a drug by an organism.
3. To accept and begin to use, as a new practice.

• take up, take-up, takeup