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

Yet a complaint took root when the simple math became obvious—the trade-off between the weight of the vehicle and the range of the expensive batteries powering it.

From The Wall Street Journal

“It’s very strange how these things have taken root.”

From Los Angeles Times

Great crime fiction can take root almost anywhere—in a rock-strewn wilderness, a London legal sanctuary, or a swanky Manhattan apartment tower.

From The Wall Street Journal

Like the perception gap, these new beliefs took root in students’ actions.

From The Wall Street Journal

Penelope was sorry to have to be privy to this conversation, but alas, the idea that she could be used as a personal secretary had taken root in Lady Constance’s mind.

From Literature

Related Words

• burgeon
• germinate
• grow