take up

verb

To pick up. (transitive)
To remove (a ground or floor surface, including the bed of a road or the track of a railway). (transitive) · We're going to have to take up the floorboards.
To absorb (a liquid), to soak up. (transitive)
To shorten (a garment), especially by hemming. (transitive) · If we take up the sleeves a bit, that shirt will look much better on you.
To tighten or wind in (a rope, slack, etc.) (transitive) · The reel automatically took up the slack.
To occupy; to consume (space or time). (transitive) · The books on finance take up three shelves.· All my time is taken up with looking after the kids.
To take, to assume (one’s appointed or intended place). (transitive) · She took up her post at the foot of the stairs.
To begin doing (an activity) on a regular basis. (transitive) · I’ve taken up knitting.· I wish to take up mathematics.

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From the library

I’ve been through the encyclopaedia down to Y looking for something you can’t buy with it; and I expect to have to take up the appendix next week.

Six stories from The Four Million, p. 9 · C1

Look well, O Wolves!” And the anxious mothers would take up the call: “Look--look well, O Wolves!”

The Jungle Book, p. 8 · B2

Jane, Ruby, Josie, Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the stirrings of ambition, were content to take up the Second Class work.

Anne of Green Gables, p. 291 · C1

It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, p. 101 · B2

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