Definition of "uptake"

uptake

/ˈʌpteɪk/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural uptakes
1. Understanding; comprehension.
2. Absorption, especially of food or nutrient by an organism.
3. The act of lifting or taking up.
4. (dated) A chimney.
  Quotations
  The design provides for continuous smoke troughs of reinforced concrete, vented by circular uptakes, and the turntable area will be covered, using precast reinforced concrete bars down both sides of each track.
  1951 January, “Notes and News: New Roof for Cricklewood M.P.D.”, in Railway Magazine, page 67
5. (dated) The upcast pipe from the smokebox of a steam boiler towards the chimney.
verb
third-person singular simple present uptakes, present participle uptaking, simple past uptook, past participle uptaken
1. (archaic) To take up, to lift.
  Quotations
  He hearkned to his reason, and the childe Vptaking, to the Palmer gaue to beare [...].
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
2. To absorb, as food or a drug by an organism.
3. To accept and begin to use, as a new practice.