take the fifth

1. 1.

   refuse to testify by invoking the Fifth Amendment, which states that nobody may be forced to testify as a witness against himself or herself

   Synonymstake the Fifth Amendment

   Broaderdeclare

Questions about take the fifth

What does take the fifth mean?

take the fifth means "refuse to testify by invoking the Fifth Amendment, which states that nobody may be forced to testify as a witness against himself or herself".

What is another word for take the fifth?

Close synonyms include take the Fifth Amendment. 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 take the fifth a common word?

take the fifth is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.