tackle

1. 1.

   accept as a challenge

   “I'll tackle this difficult task”

   Synonymsundertaketake on

   Broaderconfront

   Narrowerrise
2. 2.

   put a harness

   “harness the horse”

   Synonymsharness

   Broaderattach

   Narrowerinspan

   animal husbandry

3. 3.

   seize and throw down an opponent player, who usually carries the ball

   Broaderattack

   football

Other forms of tackle

plural

tackles·

past tense

tackled·

present participle

tackling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about tackle

What does tackle mean?

tackle means "the person who plays that position on a football team". That is the primary sense; the word has 8 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tackle?

tackle has 2 syllables: tac-kle. The stress falls on "tac". In IPA it is /ˈtækəl/.

What is another word for tackle?

Close synonyms include rigging, fishing gear, fishing tackle, fishing rig, rig. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is tackle a common word?

tackle is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.