Undertake

Undertake - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

UNDERTA'KE, v.t. pret. undertook; pp. undertaken. [under and take.]

1. To engage in; to enter upon; to take in hand; to begin to perform. When I undertook this work, I had a very inadequate knowledge of the extent of my labors.

2. To covenant or contract to perform or execute. A man undertakes to erect a house, or to make a mile of canal, when he enters into stipulations for that purpose.

3. To attempt; as when a man undertakes what he cannot perform.

4. To assume a character. [Not in use.]

5. To engage with; to attack.

Your lordship should not undertake every companion you offend. [Not in use.]

6. To have the charge of.

- Who undertakes you to your end. [Not in use.]

UNDERTA'KE, v.i.

1. To take upon or assume any business or province.

O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me. Isa 38.

2. To venture; to hazard. They dare not undertake.

3. To promise; to be bound.

I dare undertake they will not lose their labor.

To undertake for, to be bound; to become surety for.

un-der-tak': "To take upon one's self," "assume responsibility," and so in Elizabethan English "be surety." In this sense in the King James Version Isa 38:14, "O Lord, .... undertake for me" (`arabh, the Revised Version (British and American) "be thou my surety"). Perhaps in the same sense in Sirach 29:19, although the idea is scarcely contained in the Greek verb dioko, "pursue." In the modern sense in 1 Esdras 1:28; 2 Macc 2:29; 8:10; the King James Version 2:27.

See SURE; SURETY.