take a leaf out of someone's book
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To imitate or learn from someone's behavior or approach
Literally: remove a page from someone's book
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
If only the Department of Education and Science would take a leaf out of C&P's book when introducing some of the fundamental changes that education has had to absorb over the last few years!
We do have to take a leaf, a little bit out of Kenzie's book from the n the late nineteen thirties and afterwards, that when things are receding, you don't batten down the hatches, you don't simply close things in.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “take a leaf out of someone's book” mean?
To imitate or learn from someone's behavior or approach Literally: remove a page from someone's book
Is “take a leaf out of someone's book” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“đua đòi” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.