take its toll

present singular third person takes its toll · participle present taking its toll · past took its toll · participle past taken its toll · alternative take a toll · alternative take their toll · alternative take a heavy toll

1. idiomaticoftenTo affect something, especially negatively; to damage or degrade; to cause harm or destruction.

   Heavy smoking and drinking will take its toll on a person's health.

   4 more examples

   Time had taken its toll on the old bridge, and it was no longer sound.

   The Thirty Years' War in Germany took its toll of bloodshed without bequeathing as a recompense any real political or moral blessing.

   2015, Charles Sydney Goldman, The Empire and the century, Introduction

   A lot of attention has rightly been paid to the toll that fulfilling our orders takes upon workers in warehouses or drivers in delivery vans.

   2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian

   England not only reached the World Cup semi-finals for the first time since Italia 90, they did the job under the pressure of the occasion and the requirement to back up the victory over Colombia on penalties in the last 16 - with all of the mental toll that will have taken.

   2018 July 7, Phil McNulty, “Sweden 0-2 England”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms: do a number on