take someone at their word

English

Verb

take someone at their word (third-person singular simple present takes someone at their word, present participle taking someone at their word, simple past took someone at their word, past participle taken someone at their word)

1. (transitive) To take someone literally even though they may not have been serious; to take someone seriously even though they were joking; to take up a challenge that was initially meant as a joke.
2. (transitive) To take someone's word for it, to believe someone without having the means to check that what they said is true.
   • 2023, Phil Illy, “Autosexuality Beyond Gender”, in Autoheterosexual: Attracted to Being the Other Sex‎^[1], Houndstooth Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 447:

     There’s no way to objectively know if a particular alterhuman individual is actually an otherkin, otherkith, or otherlink. As with matters of gender identity, they have to be taken at their word—sometimes quite literally: it might be a word you've never heard before.

Translations

take someone literally even though they may not have been serious

• Danish: tage nogen på ordet
• Finnish: ottaa todesta, ottaa kirjaimellisesti
• French: prendre au mot (fr), prendre au pied de la lettre (fr), prendre au sérieux (fr)
• Polish: traktować poważnie impf, potraktować poważnie pf

believe someone without having the means to check that what they said is true

• Finnish: luottaa sanaan (+ genitive or possessive suffix), uskoa sanaan (+ genitive and/or possessive suffix)
• French: croire sur parole (fr)
• Polish: wierzyć na słowo n, uwierzyć na słowo pf

See also

• on the face of it
• take at face value

Further reading

• “take someone at their word” (US) / “take someone at their word” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “take someone at their word”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “take sb at their word”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “take someone at his word”, in Collins English Dictionary.