take water

present singular third person takes water · participle present taking water · past took water · participle past taken water

1. archaichistoricalTo travel in a vessel on a body of water; to embark on a ship.First known use 15th c.

   I concealed my amour, as well as the effects of it, from his knowledge, and frequently took water from the Bridge, that my motions might not be discovered.

   1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 88, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume III, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

2. As a person or animal, to go into a body of water and start swimming.First known use 15th c.
3. Of a vessel, to admit water through a leak or port or similar; to take in water.First known use 16th c.

   It had taken Water, and the Powder was cak'd as hard as a Stone.

   1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC

4. UScolloquialTo run away; to back down.First known use 19th c.
5. rail transportTo top up the water tanks.

   The engines took water at Dingwall, the junction for the cross-country line to Kyle of Lochalsh, and again at Tain, 44 miles from Inverness.

   1950 January, Arthur F. Beckenham, “With British Railways to the Far North”, in Railway Magazine, page 6

   1 more example

   As the engine took water, there was time to think of the curious turn of events that brought the North British (in the thin disguise of "Border Counties Railway") over the border, down the North Tyne to Hexham, and eastward from Reedsmouth by the Wansbeck Valley line to Morpeth (and Rothbury), though some of the emptiest parts of one of the emptiest counties of England.

   1956 December, Michael Robbins, “End of the Border Counties Line”, in Railway Magazine, page 808