transpreni

Decode it. Trans-preni. Trans, rank 592, is across or beyond. Preni, rank 183, is to take. Taking a thing across from one holder to another is taking it over, and the word means exactly what its parts say.

The preni family. This is one of the best-behaved verb clusters in the language, and by now you have most of it:

• preni, rank 183 - to take, the bare verb
• alpreni, rank 1630 - to take on, to adopt: a habit, an attitude, a name
• pruntepreni, rank 1768 - to borrow, literally to take on loan
• transpreni, rank 2479 - to take over from somebody
• ĉirkaŭpreni, rank 2469 - to take around, that is, to embrace

Five words, one root, and in every case the preposition tells you the direction of the taking. Once you can see the pattern you can read compounds you have never met: forpreni is to take away, kunpreni is to take along, elpreni is to take out. None of them needs a dictionary.

Transpreni is transitive and takes the thing taken over as its object: a job, a business, a duty, a debt, a turn of phrase. Transpreno is the takeover.