take root

Idioms  

1. Become established or fixed, as in We're not sure how the movement took root, but it did so very rapidly. This idiom transfers the establishment of a plant, whose roots settle into the earth, to other matters. [Late 1500s]

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Example Sentences

A short walk along an irrigation canal leads to a weathered observation deck rising two stories above a patchwork of saturated flats where saltgrass, iodine bush and cattail take root.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 7, 2026

It would take years, economists and business leaders say, to reorient global patterns of trade that took decades to take root.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 19, 2026

Efforts to encourage investing in Japan, where many have long kept a big chunk of their wealth in deposit accounts, have been slow to take root.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 10, 2025

"I see it as a staged process. I don't see it as something that, necessarily, in a popular sense, will take root until long after the bombing is over."

From BBC • Jun. 25, 2025

And if she thought too hard about her, Hazel would just stop right there in the woods and wait for herself to take root.

From "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu

Related Words

• burgeon
• germinate
• grow