English · Idiom Historical

to take the wind

Preserved but no longer current.

Also seen as: to have the wind

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To get or keep the upper hand. Bacon uses the phrase. To have the wind of a ship is to be to the windward of it.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

đạt hoặc giữ ưu thế

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Wind & clouds Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “to take the wind” mean?

To get or keep the upper hand. Bacon uses the phrase. To have the wind of a ship is to be to the windward of it.

Is “to take the wind” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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