Undertake
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(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 [2]
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 [3]
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 .
