tackle
Americannoun
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tackles
plural
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equipment, apparatus, or gear, especially for fishing.
fishing tackle.
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a mechanism or apparatus, as a rope and block or a combination of ropes and blocks, for hoisting, lowering, and shifting objects or materials; purchase.
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any system of leverage using several pulleys.
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Nautical. the gear and running rigging for handling a ship or performing some task on a ship.
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an act of tackling, as in football; a seizing, grasping, or bringing down.
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Football.
-
either of the linemen stationed between a guard and an end.
-
the position played by this lineman.
-
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(formerly) tack.
verb (used with object)
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tackles,
present (3rd person singular)
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tackled,
past participle, past
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tackling
present participle
-
to undertake to handle, master, solve, etc..
to tackle a difficult problem.
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to deal with (a person) on some problem, issue, etc.
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to harness (a horse).
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Football. to seize, stop, or throw down (a ball-carrier).
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Soccer, Field Hockey. to block or impede the movement or progress of (an opponent having the ball) with the result of depriving the opponent of the ball.
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to seize suddenly, especially in order to stop.
verb (used without object)
-
tackles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
tackled,
past participle, past
-
tackling
present participle
noun
-
any mechanical system for lifting or pulling, esp an arrangement of ropes and pulleys designed to lift heavy weights
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the equipment required for a particular occupation, etc
fishing tackle
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nautical the halyards and other running rigging aboard a vessel
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slang a man's genitals
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sport a physical challenge to an opponent, as to prevent his progress with the ball
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American football a defensive lineman
verb
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(tr) to undertake (a task, problem, etc)
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(tr) to confront (a person, esp an opponent) with a difficult proposition
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sport (esp in football games) to challenge (an opponent) with a tackle
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
tacklesimple
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tacklessimple
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have tackledperfect
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has tackledperfect
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am tacklingprogressive
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are tacklingprogressive
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is tacklingprogressive
-
have been tacklingperfect progressive
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has been tacklingperfect progressive
Past
-
tackledsimple
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had tackledperfect
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was tacklingprogressive
-
were tacklingprogressive
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had been tacklingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tackle
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English takel “gear, apparatus,” from Middle Low German; akin to take
Explanation
To tackle a challenge means taking it on, so if you set out to tackle the classics of English literature, you should be prepared spend a lot of time in the library. The word tackle can be a verb or a noun, depending on its use. Today, the noun usually means fishing gear, but when it came into the English language it meant the ropes on a ship. If a ship was lurching about on the high seas, you dealt with that challenge by grabbing the tackle and wrestling it under control. Nowadays, people tend to think of tackling running backs and financial fraud, rather than ropes.
Vocabulary lists containing tackle
Set, Hut! Football Vocabulary
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Words Football Fans Can Master Easily
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American Football, 2nd Quarter
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Matheus Nunes: An impressive display and made a great tackle in the box to deny Barcola in the first half.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
As workloads mount and job security ebbs, employees are logging in on Sundays to tackle unfinished tasks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
The brother of schoolboy Damilola Taylor, killed in an attack in Peckham 26 years ago, has said work to tackle knife crime is "needed now more than ever".
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
Chargers right tackle Rashawn Slater could be a candidate for injured reserve after sustaining a high ankle sprain against the Seattle Seahawks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026
I looked down at the research proposal, not ready to tackle the physics of an acoustic tag.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
While “Demolition” again tackles thwarted desire and self-loathing, this time it comes in the form of a wildly catchy rock anthem.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
He scored a goal, made some big tackles, and was also was able to play out from the back, being the catalyst for Palace, so he goes in as well.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
He did not travel to Australia for the opener, but played 33 snaps and made three tackles, including one for a loss, in a victory over the New York Giants at SoFi Stadium.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026
Pasquariello tackles a couple of other caveats investors might cite about buying stocks here.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 6, 2026
In his Ring cycle, Wagner tackles the subjects of incest, or the abuse of power, or greed - all pertinent to nineteenth-century Europe - but transports the action to the distant mists of prehistory.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Raman also spent a year as executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment, which tackled sexual harassment in Hollywood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
At a time when other sitcoms occasionally tackled social issues in “very special” episodes and “The Cosby Show” hewed to its namesake star’s dedication to respectability politics, “A Different World” regularly confronted harder topics.
From Salon ● Sep. 24, 2026
"In this case we tackled polyethylene, a widely available commodity polymer, using molten salt," he said.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2026
Bilton sees AI as the kind of defining story “60 Minutes” tackled in previous eras, including the Vietnam War, the fight against Big Tobacco and the Sept. 11 attacks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
Maybe if we’d tackled it at the start, things would have played out differently, who knows?
From "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
But Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Grahame, the national police lead on tackling vehicle crime, tells us officers' efforts - like the night-time operation in east London - are having an impact.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
On Tuesday, the IMF will unveil its global economic forecast, along with detailed regional outlooks through the week, as policymakers set about tackling the challenges darkening the economic horizon.
From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2026
The Spanish government earlier this week introduced a series of measures aimed at tackling the crisis, including extending a ban on evictions and providing tax breaks for tenants and small property owners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Companies based around the San Francisco Bay Area, including OpenAI and Meta, have promoted AI assistants as friendly, cute helpers for tackling tedious tasks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
She was so scairt of the cap’n that she was jumping at every owl hoot and near tackling me whenever something rustled ’gainst a branch in the woods out back.
From "The Journey of Little Charlie" by Christopher Paul Curtis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
