Uptaken

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Having been taken in, accepted, or adopted by someone or something
2. Describes something that has been embraced or absorbed into use or practice
3. Refers to an object or idea that has been received or incorporated by a person or group

Etymology: "Uptaken" is the past participle of "uptake," so its story is really the story of the verb it comes from. The verb began in Middle English as "uptaken," meaning "to take up" or "to lift," and it was a partial calque of an earlier Middle English word, "upnimen," which carried the same sense. A calque is a word built by copying the parts of a foreign or older term, and here English simply rebuilt the older expression from its own pieces: "up" plus "take." The sense of physically lifting something gradually gave way to the idea of taking something in or accepting it. The noun "uptake" later grew out of this figurative shift, and it is from that later meaning of absorbing or adopting that the modern sense of "uptaken" as "absorbed into use" arises.