take the fifth amendment
verb
Simple meaning
Refuse to testify by invoking the Fifth Amendment, which states that nobody may be forced to testify as a witness against himself or herself.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
taykthuhfifthuhmehndmuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈteɪkðəˈfɪfθəˈmɛndmənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Refuse to testify by invoking the Fifth Amendment, which states that nobody may be forced to testify as a witness against himself or herself
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Refuse to testify by invoking the Fifth Amendment, which states that nobody may be forced to testify as a witness against himself or herself
Used this way, take the fifth amendment is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.