take point
verb1
Government, Military, Politics, War To assume the first and most exposed position in a formation in combat; to serve as the lead soldier or unit advancing through hostile or unsecured territory.
2
Broadly To assume a key role in an operation.
- But unlike the intervention in Libya, where France and Britain took point and America “led from behind”, an intervention in Syria would have to be a mostly American affair, and as such it would be done with massive force from the outset.2012 September 15, “The war in Syria: Death from the skies”, in The Economist:
- Derived terms
- point man
- Related terms
- point taken