Undertake

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( v. t.) To assume, as a character.

(2): ( v. i.) To venture; to hazard.

(3): ( v. i.) To give a promise or guarantee; to be surety.

(4): ( v. t.) To take upon one's self; to engage in; to enter upon; to take in hand; to begin to perform; to set about; to attempt.

(5): ( v. t.) Specifically, to take upon one's self solemnly or expressly; to lay one's self under obligation, or to enter into stipulations, to perform or to execute; to covenant; to contract.

(6): ( v. t.) Hence, to guarantee; to promise; to affirm.

(7): ( v. i.) To take upon one's self, or assume, any business, duty, or province.

(8): ( v. t.) To engage with; to attack.

(9): ( v. t.) To have knowledge of; to hear.

(10): ( v. t.) To take or have the charge of.

King James Dictionary

UNDERTA'KE, 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,

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

O Lord, I am oppressed undertake for me.  Isaiah 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.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

un - dẽr - tāk ´: "To take upon one's self," "assume responsibility," and so in Elizabethan English "be surety." In this sense in the King James Version   Isaiah 38:14 , "O Lord,... undertake for me" (ערב , ‛ārabh , 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 διώκω , diṓkō , "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 .