MEANING
To accept something as it appears, without checking for hidden meanings, motives, or problems.
Use it for
describing acceptance of an explanation without further checking; warning against trusting appearances alone; contrasting a literal reading with a search for hidden motives; showing that a claim has not been independently examinedNames accepting an apparent meaning without investigating whether something different lies behind it. Writing functions: Judgment / Uncritical acceptance. Semantic categories (by meaning): Judgment / Uncritical acceptance. Contexts: General conversation; Creative prose.
Words that belong together
- take a claim at face value
- take an offer at face value
On the page
The investigator did not take the unsigned explanation at face value.
She chose to take his offer at face value rather than search for an insult.
Word forms
- Base
- take something at face value
Usage notes
Verbal idiom: take/takes/took/taken/taking something at face value. The object can be a statement, explanation, offer, or apparent behavior. Register: neutral. Commonness: common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
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