tackle

American  

[tak-uhl, tay-kuhl] / ˈtæk əl, ˈteɪ kəl /

noun

• tackles
  plural

1. equipment, apparatus, or gear, especially for fishing.

   fishing tackle.

2. 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.

3. any system of leverage using several pulleys.

4. Nautical. the gear and running rigging for handling a ship or performing some task on a ship.

5. an act of tackling, as in football; a seizing, grasping, or bringing down.

6. Football.

   1. either of the linemen stationed between a guard and an end.

   2. the position played by this lineman.

7. (formerly) tack.

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verb (used with object)

• tackles,
  present (3rd person singular)
• tackled,
  past participle,  past
• tackling
  present participle

1. to undertake to handle, master, solve, etc..

   to tackle a difficult problem.

2. to deal with (a person) on some problem, issue, etc.

3. to harness (a horse).

4. Football. to seize, stop, or throw down (a ball-carrier).

5. 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.

6. to seize suddenly, especially in order to stop.

verb (used without object)

• tackles,
  present (3rd person singular)
• tackled,
  past participle,  past
• tackling
  present participle

1. Football. to tackle an opponent having the ball.

tackle British  

/ ˈteɪkəl, ˈtækəl /

noun

1. any mechanical system for lifting or pulling, esp an arrangement of ropes and pulleys designed to lift heavy weights

2. the equipment required for a particular occupation, etc

   fishing tackle

3. nautical the halyards and other running rigging aboard a vessel

4. slang a man's genitals

5. sport a physical challenge to an opponent, as to prevent his progress with the ball

6. American football a defensive lineman

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verb

1. (tr) to undertake (a task, problem, etc)

2. (tr) to confront (a person, esp an opponent) with a difficult proposition

3. sport (esp in football games) to challenge (an opponent) with a tackle

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• tackler
  noun
• retackle
  verb (used with object)

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• tackles
  plural

Participles

• tackling
  present
• tackled
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• tackle
  simple
• tackles
  simple
• have tackled
  perfect
• has tackled
  perfect
• am tackling
  progressive
• are tackling
  progressive
• is tackling
  progressive
• have been tackling
  perfect progressive
• has been tackling
  perfect progressive

Past

• tackled
  simple
• had tackled
  perfect
• was tackling
  progressive
• were tackling
  progressive
• had been tackling
  perfect progressive

Future

• will tackle
  simple
• will have tackled
  perfect
• will be tackling
  progressive
• will have been tackling
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of tackle

First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English takel “gear, apparatus,” from Middle Low German; akin to take

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tackle tackles tackled tackling

Said special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone: “It ultimately comes down to reverting back to your fundamentals and your techniques that enable you to be able to protect, block, tackle, all of those things.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026

McVay was busy releasing Mevis and signing Grupe, and dealing with the NFL’s suspension of left tackle Alaric Jackson.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026

Speaking after the game, Jones admitted that the Newcastle Knights man would now have medical checks after playing on for a quarter of the contest with an injury sustained in a tackle with Cameron Munster.

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026

The makers of the French-Italian Samp/T say their latest version can tackle ballistic missiles.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

That means he hands off to me and I run over right tackle.

From "Crash" by Jerry Spinelli

She won all her tackles, had a 90% passing accuracy rate, took four shots, scored once and had another disallowed.

From BBC ● 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

Between the hours Urschel spent fending off nose tackles and studying eigenvalue problems, he barely saw the woman he would marry.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Nick puts his books down and Ducky tackles him around the waist.

From "Slam!" by Walter Dean Myers

Washington blew a chance to beat the Giants in overtime when Jayden Daniels was tackled as time expired.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026

First Guehi was tackled by Lamine Yamal on the edge of his own box, allowing the Spain winger to drive towards goal and slot in his side's opener.

From BBC ● Sep. 26, 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

There was the squeal of babies who had tackled one another too vigorously.

From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer

Others are testing whether degraders are more effective at tackling disease on the first go-round.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

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

Most of the global targets they set four years ago -- from tackling invasive species to conserving 30 percent of land and oceans, slashing pollution and protecting threatened species -- are off-track.

From Barron's ● Oct. 12, 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

Modulations can make harmonic analysis much more challenging, so try to become comfortable analyzing easier pieces before tackling pieces with modulations.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones

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