Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A passage for drawing up smoke or air.
- noun Understanding; comprehension.
- noun An act of taking in or absorbing, especially into a living organism.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To take up; take into the hand.
- To succor; help.
- noun A pipe or duct or channel leading gas, water, steam, or other liquid upward from below: used of part of a boiler furnace flue-system, in the gas-producer, blast-furnace, and elsewhere; specifically, a flue leading hot gas from the combustion-chamber or smoke-box to the chimney, in gas-making or in boiler-settings.
- noun The act of taking up; lifting.
- noun Perceptive power; apprehension; conception: as, he is quick in the uptake. Scott, Old Mortality, vii. The upcast pipe from the smoke-box of a steam-boiler, leading to the chimney.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb obsolete To take into the hand; to take up; to help.
- noun The pipe leading upward from the smoke box of a steam boiler to the chimney, or smokestack; a flue leading upward.
- noun Scot. Understanding; apprehension.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
understanding ,comprehension - noun
absorption , especially offood ornutrient by anorganism - noun dated a
chimney - verb archaic To
take up , tolift .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the process of taking food into the body through the mouth (as by eating)
- noun a process of taking up or using up or consuming
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word uptake.
Examples
-
In blue states, we have out of wedlock abortions instead of out of wedlock births (well, we try to teach birth control but the uptake is never 100%).
The Volokh Conspiracy » “Do ‘Family Values’ Weaken Families?” 2010
-
And it made little difference that atom-splitting, radar, and television were British discoveries, since like jazz and cinema the main uptake of all the big ideas was on the American side of the Atlantic.
Downhill All the Way 2006
-
And it made little difference that atom-splitting, radar, and television were British discoveries, since like jazz and cinema the main uptake of all the big ideas was on the American side of the Atlantic.
Downhill All the Way 2006
-
And it made little difference that atom-splitting, radar, and television were British discoveries, since like jazz and cinema the main uptake of all the big ideas was on the American side of the Atlantic.
Downhill All the Way 2006
-
He has contributed strongly to the development of selective serotonin uptake blockers, a new generation of antidepressive drugs.
-
These data support the increased long-term uptake of NUEDEXTA, as we continue with our launch efforts and get increased accumulative exposure to doctors.
unknown title 2011
-
Amazon’s S3 service took this approach and their uptake is too slow, there’s no visible momentum (I know I’ll get lots of links for saying that).
-
"I don't want to be a scaremonger," Goldacre writes, "but it's relatively easy to spot drops in uptake of vaccines that happen immediately after major scare stories, or, perhaps, a major TV drama.
Vaccine myths and irresponsibility Ray Girvan 2003
-
"I don't want to be a scaremonger," Goldacre writes, "but it's relatively easy to spot drops in uptake of vaccines that happen immediately after major scare stories, or, perhaps, a major TV drama.
Archive 2003-12-01 Ray Girvan 2003
-
A common measure of aerobic efficiency is "VO2 max," or optimal oxygen uptake, which is determined using special equipment and a treadmill.
The Week in Ideas 2010
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.