take a leaf out of someone's book

present singular third person takes a leaf out of someone's book · participle present taking a leaf out of someone's book · past took a leaf out of someone's book · participle past taken a leaf out of someone's book

1. idiomaticTo adopt an idea or practice of another person.

   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.

   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

   Synonyms: borrow a leaf out of someone's book, borrow a page from someone's book, rip a page out of someone's book, rip a page out of someone's playbook, take a page from someone's book, take a page out of someone's book, take a page out of someone's playbook