take effect

verb — 2 senses

take effect

verb
1

Informal, Usually, Of a drug To become active; to become effective.

  • The medication won't begin to take effect for 3-4 hours.
2

Informal, Usually, Of a law To come into force, to come into effect, to inure.

  • The new regulations will take effect once they are approved by the Office of Administrative Law.
Synonyms
kick in

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.