take a leaf out of someone's book

English

Alternative forms

• borrow a leaf out of someone's book
• take a page out of someone's book
• rip a page out of someone's book
• take a page out of someone's playbook (rare)
• rip a page out of someone's playbook (rare)

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

take a leaf out of someone's book (third-person singular simple present takes a leaf out of someone's book, present participle taking a leaf out of someone's book, simple past took a leaf out of someone's book, past participle taken a leaf out of someone's book)

1. (idiomatic) To adopt an idea or practice of another person.
   • 1927, M[ohandas] K[aramchand] Gandhi, chapter XVI, in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Translated from the Original in Gujarati, volume I, Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Navajivan Press, →OCLC:

     Let every youth take a leaf out of my book and make it a point to account for everything that comes into and goes out of his pocket, and like me he is sure to be a gainer in the end.

Translations

adopt an idea

• Finnish: ottaa mallia, ottaa esimerkkiä
• French: prendre exemple (fr), en prendre de la graine (fr)
• German: sich von jemandem eine Scheibe abschneiden können (de)
• Polish: brać przykład impf, wziąć przykład pf
• Portuguese: seguir o exemplo de