take water

take water (third-person singular simple present takes water, present participle taking water, simple past took water, past participle taken water)

1. (now rare, historical) To travel in a vessel on a body of water; to embark on a ship. [from 15th c.]
   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 88, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume III, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

     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.

2. As a person or animal, to go into a body of water and start swimming. [from 15th c.]
3. Of a vessel, to admit water through a leak or port or similar; to take in water. [from 16th c.]
   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC:

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

4. (US, colloquial) To run away; to back down. [from 19th c.]
5. (rail transport, of steam locomotives) To top up the water tanks.
   • 1950 January, Arthur F. Beckenham, “With British Railways to the Far North”, in Railway Magazine, page 6:

     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.