Take a breath means to breathe in once. Take a deep breath means to breathe in deeply: people say it literally, for example at the doctor's, and figuratively, meaning calm down and get ready for something hard. Breath here is a noun, “the air you take in”, and is pronounced [breθ]. The verb breathe ends in e and is pronounced [briːð].
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take a breath; take a deep breath (and + verb); take a breath of fresh air
- Take a deep breath and tell me slowly what happened at the station.
- Before the interview, I went outside to take a breath of fresh air.
- The doctor asked me to take a deep breath while she listened to my chest.
What changed
First versionTake a deep breathe and count to five.
RevisionTake a deep breath and count to five.
Breathe is the verb, while take a deep needs the noun breath. The two are confused in writing all the time because they differ by a single letter. The correction removes the extra e.
Take a breath means to breathe in or pause briefly before the next step. Catch your breath means to get your breathing back to normal after running or climbing: Let me catch my breath, the stairs were steep. Hold your breath means to stop breathing for a moment: Hold your breath and swim under the rope.
Your turn
Before you start speaking, ___ a deep breath and relax your shoulders.
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take — Breath goes with take: take a deep breath. Make a breath is not something native speakers say.
Describe a moment when you needed to calm down. Say where you were and what you did after taking a deep breath.
Before my driving test, I sat in the car outside the test centre, took a deep breath and started the engine.
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