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

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

He said he agrees with the Tachi Yokut Tribe that restoring part of the lake would improve life in the valley and allow its original ecosystem to take root again.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 3, 2025

In a feebler, curious state, falsehoods can take root while truth slips through our hands, and vice versa.

From Salon • Jun. 7, 2025

As a teenager reading African parasitology books in the medical library, I was boggled by the array of creatures equipped to take root upon a human body.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

Related Words

• burgeon
• germinate
• grow