take shape

Idioms  

1. Also, shape up. Turn out, develop, acquire a distinctive form, as in Her reelection campaign is already taking shape, two years before the election, or Can you tell us how the book is shaping up? The first term dates from the mid-1700s and the variant, originally put as shape out, from about 1600.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

take shape

Year on year, a new society starts to take shape.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

If it were possible to watch the earliest cells take shape, the scene may have involved two distinct forms of primitive cellular life.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 12, 2026

Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, so Renaissance thinking went, were the cultural ancestors of the “West,” an imagined cultural space then beginning to take shape.

From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026

It was really starting to take shape in his brain.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026

Slowly—exceedingly slowly—the mess of wool in my hands began to take shape.

From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly

Related Words

• brew
• come on
• dominate
• emerge
• hover
• mount
• overshadow
• portend
• soar
• stand out
• threaten