Where does fortake come from?

It is traced to Middle English.

fortake

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Scrabble Score

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verb

Transitive verb

verb

British usage; Transitive verb

verb

To aim or deal a blow at; hit.

British usage; Transitive verb

"Be ye not willing to hoard to you gold hoards on earth, where rust and moth fortake it, and where thieves delve it and forsteal, [...]"
"In a slaughter wide they fell, woeful days of Bale came on; Famine-death fortook fortitude from men!"

From Middle English fortaken, equivalent to for- + take. Cognate with dialectal Norwegian fortaka (“to assail, assault”), Swedish förta (“to deprive, take away, deaden”).

fortakes (present, singular) fortaking (participle, present) fortook (past) fortaken (participle, past) no-table-tags (table tags) glossary (inflection template) fortook (first person, past) fortakest (archaic, present) fortook (past, second person) fortookst (archaic, past) fortaketh (archaic, present) fortook (past, singular)