sb. (a.) [The verbal phrase take up (see TAKE v. 90) used as sb. or adj.] The act of taking up, or a contrivance for taking up.
1. The act of ‘taking up’ or drawing together the stuff so as to form ‘gathers’ in a dress; concr. one of such ‘gathers.’
1825. Jamieson, Tak-up, Take-up, the name given to a tuck in female dress.
1880. Plain Hints Needlework, 19. The take-up of each gather should be … neatly done.
2. a. A device in a machine for tightening a band, rope, etc. b. A device in a sewing-machine for drawing the thread so as to tighten the stitch.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2483/2. The independent take-up is one which acts in its own time without being actuated by the needle-bar.
1888. Sci. Amer., 3 March, 138/2. A sewing machine, and a take up and tension for sewing machines, form the subject of three patents.
3. In a loom or other machine, the process of winding up the stuff already woven or treated; concr. the part of the mechanism by which this is done. Also attrib. or adj., as in take-up motion.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2483/2. The let-off is the paying off of the yarn from the beam, and proceeds coincidently with the take-up. Ibid. (1884), Suppl., Take Up Motion..., a device for automatically winding the tissue on to the cloth beam.
4. The part between the smoke-box and the bottom of the funnel of a marine engine boiler.
1838. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., I. 225/1. If the pressure continues … the water rises through the take-up into the fire, and extinguishes it.
1888. A. E. Seaton, Marine Eng. (ed. 7), 365. The part between the smoke-box and funnel is called the ‘uptake’ or ‘take-up.’
