tackle
Americannoun
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tackles
plural
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equipment, apparatus, or gear, especially for fishing.
fishing tackle.
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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.
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any system of leverage using several pulleys.
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Nautical. the gear and running rigging for handling a ship or performing some task on a ship.
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an act of tackling, as in football; a seizing, grasping, or bringing down.
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Football.
-
either of the linemen stationed between a guard and an end.
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the position played by this lineman.
-
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(formerly) tack.
verb (used with object)
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tackles,
present (3rd person singular)
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tackled,
past participle, past
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tackling
present participle
-
to undertake to handle, master, solve, etc..
to tackle a difficult problem.
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to deal with (a person) on some problem, issue, etc.
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to harness (a horse).
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Football. to seize, stop, or throw down (a ball-carrier).
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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.
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to seize suddenly, especially in order to stop.
verb (used without object)
-
tackles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
tackled,
past participle, past
-
tackling
present participle
noun
-
any mechanical system for lifting or pulling, esp an arrangement of ropes and pulleys designed to lift heavy weights
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the equipment required for a particular occupation, etc
fishing tackle
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nautical the halyards and other running rigging aboard a vessel
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slang a man's genitals
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sport a physical challenge to an opponent, as to prevent his progress with the ball
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American football a defensive lineman
verb
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(tr) to undertake (a task, problem, etc)
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(tr) to confront (a person, esp an opponent) with a difficult proposition
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sport (esp in football games) to challenge (an opponent) with a tackle
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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tacklesimple
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tacklessimple
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have tackledperfect
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has tackledperfect
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am tacklingprogressive
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are tacklingprogressive
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is tacklingprogressive
-
have been tacklingperfect progressive
-
has been tacklingperfect progressive
Past
-
tackledsimple
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had tackledperfect
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was tacklingprogressive
-
were tacklingprogressive
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had been tacklingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tackle
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English takel “gear, apparatus,” from Middle Low German; akin to take
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.
Vocabulary lists containing tackle
Set, Hut! Football Vocabulary
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Words Football Fans Can Master Easily
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American Football, 2nd Quarter
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Balaclava boys on electric bikes: How to tackle the problem?
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
The project is designed to tackle two related problems.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
Does your desire to give back or tackle societal problems energize you?
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
They may reduce some risk, but they can’t eliminate the repetitive collisions and acceleration forces that are intrinsic to tackle football.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Emma hoped it looked more like a hug than a tackle to the police officers.
From "The Strangers" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
In “Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings,” Jared Diamond tackles the question of how much individual leaders matter to the course of events.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
She enjoys doing drop-off and pickup, using the commute time to help her daughter navigate the kinds of human dilemmas she does professionally, while her house manager tackles dinner prep at home.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
The advance tackles a major obstacle in the field and could help move quantum computing closer to becoming fault-tolerant.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026
He won an Academy Award for best documentary for "Taxi to the Dark Side," which tackles the US military's interrogation practices in Afghanistan.
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
This saint tackles difficult situations, matters of life and death.
From "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario
They tackled well and trailed only 14-7 at halftime.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Bilton sees AI as the kind of defining story “60 Minutes” tackled in previous eras, including the Vietnam War, the fight against Big Tobacco and the Sept. 11 attacks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
Aditi Shrikant and Beth Pinsker tackled the above question:
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 28, 2026
She tackled “diva” with Mariah Carey and “bimbo” with Paris Hilton.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
Maybe if we’d tackled it at the start, things would have played out differently, who knows?
From "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
Tice insisted the events had not distracted the party from the issues it was tackling, saying there were good days and bad days in politics.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
The provincial government urged communities to help police with the investigation, saying tackling crime remained a priority.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Doubts about how committed Fed rate setters are to tackling inflation have hurt the central bank’s sway over the bond market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
But EDL, charged with maintaining the grid, is tackling large debts incurred during the expansion and due to consumer subsidies.
From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026
This meant tackling the garage, closets, the storage shed in the backyard.
From "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by emily m. danforth
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
