Toma Meaning

Start hereIn a Spanish sentence, toma means "take". On an Italian menu, it is a cheese. So which toma is in the lyric or caption you just read?

01Toma Meaning

Toma is a short word with several lives. Which one you have depends on where you found it: a Spanish or Portuguese sentence, a shout, an Italian menu, a name or a song credit. Translations from Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian on this page are our own.

Spanish or Portuguese verb“Take!” and “he/she takes”

Interjection“Take that!”, “serves you right”

Spanish nounA capture, a dose, an outlet, a film take

ItalianA cheese from Piedmont and the Aosta Valley

NameA form of Thomas

SongSeveral; the best-documented is Pitbull featuring Lil Jon, 2004

Which one you have depends on where you found it.

02Toma in Spanish: the verb

Tomar covers much more ground than the English word take. The Real Academia Española’s dictionary lists 39 senses, from taking hold of something with the hand to taking a bus and taking something seriously.

Toma is two forms of it, spelled the same:

• The command, for tú: toma el vaso, take the glass; toma, es para ti, here, it’s for you.
• The present tense, for él, ella and usted: ella toma el autobús, she takes the bus.

The sentence around the word tells you which one you are reading.

The drinking sense

One of the dictionary’s senses of tomar is simply to eat or drink: tomar un desayuno, to have breakfast. The dictionary also marks a sense used in the Americas and Equatorial Guinea: to drink alcohol.

So ¿qué tomas? means “what are you having?”. In the Americas and Equatorial Guinea, tomar on its own can mean drinking.

The shout: ¡toma! in everyday speech

On its own, ¡toma! is an interjection, and the dictionary gives it two colloquial uses:

• pointing at something as a punishment, a comeuppance or a disillusion. Its example: ¿No te dije que corrías peligro? Pues ¡toma!, “Didn’t I tell you that you were in danger? Well, take that!”
• signalling that something is no news or of little importance, closer to “so what?”.

A related expression, tómate esa, is said when someone takes a blow, to show they deserved it.

Figurative uses

• Tomar una decisión — to make a decision. The dictionary notes that tomar with some nouns means the same as the verb they come from.

• Tomar en serio — to take seriously.

• Tomar el pelo — literally “to take the hair”: to tease someone with fake praise, promises or flattery.

03Toma as a noun

As a noun, la toma is a taking. The dictionary’s senses include:

• A conquest or occupation by force of a town or stronghold, as in la toma de la Bastilla, the storming of the Bastille.
• A portion taken at one time, and each dose of a medicine taken by mouth.
• The point where a flow of fluid or electricity is drawn off. In the Americas a power socket is a tomacorriente.
• The act of photographing or filming, as in a film take.

04Toma the song: Pitbull featuring Lil Jon, and the phonk tracks

Several songs share the title. The best-documented is “Toma” by Pitbull featuring Lil Jon. It is on Pitbull’s 2004 album M.I.A.M.I., released by TVT Records. It charted on Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs, reaching No. 21 in March 2005.

Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias have recorded together, so the two names are easy to mix up. Billboard lists “Messin’ Around” (2016) as Pitbull featuring Enrique Iglesias, but “Toma” is credited to Pitbull and Lil Jon. Neither the chart entry nor the album credit names Iglesias.

More recent tracks use the title too, including phonk tracks. Two of them:

• “Toma Phonk” by Mia Hill (2023)
• “Toma Toma (Brazilian Phonk)” by SXBER (2024)

Whatever the track, a shouted toma! in a Spanish or Portuguese lyric carries the meanings above: the command to take something, or “take that!”.

Pitbull featuring Lil JonOn M.I.A.M.I. (2004); No. 21 on Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs

Mia Hill“Toma Phonk” (2023)

SXBER“Toma Toma (Brazilian Phonk)” (2024)

Check the artist before you look up the lyric.

05Toma as a name

Toma is a form of Thomas. The name goes back to an Aramaic word for “twin”. The Gospel of John calls the apostle “Thomas, which is called Didymus”, the Greek for twin.

In the Romanian Bible the same verse reads Toma, zis Geamăn: “Toma, called the Twin”.

As a surname

The Dictionary of American Family Names gives several separate origins for the surname Toma. Almost all of them are forms of Thomas:

• Romanian and Croatian: from the personal name Toma.
• Italian, French, Polish, Slovak and Hungarian: from pet forms of Thomas.
• Albanian: from Tomë.
• Assyrian/Chaldean: from the Syriac Tōmā.
• Arabic: from a variant of Tuma, meaning Thomas.

It also lists an unrelated Japanese surname, Tōma. None of the origins it gives is the Spanish verb tomar.

06Toma in other languages

Portuguese

Toma is the command form and the he/she form of tomar, which covers taking, eating and drinking. It works the same way as in Spanish.

The Priberam dictionary also lists toma! as an informal interjection showing satisfaction at someone’s defeat or setback. Its example is toma, foi bem feito o que lhe aconteceu: take that, what happened to him served him right.

Italian

In Italian, toma is not a verb. The Treccani dictionary lists toma as a cheese typical of Piedmont and the Aosta Valley, made from cow’s, sheep’s or mixed milk.

It also lists toma as a word found only in the old saying promettere Roma e toma, “to promise great things”, and a few like it.

One variety, Toma Piemontese, is a protected designation of origin, and its rules require cow’s milk.

Romanian

Toma is the name Thomas, as above.

Tagalog

In Tagalog, toma is a drinking session, and a tomador is a drinker of alcohol, or a heavy drinker.

Spanish	Yes: a form of tomar
Portuguese	Yes: a form of tomar
Italian	No: a cheese, and a word in an old saying
Romanian	No: the name Thomas
Tagalog	No: a drinking session

07How to tell which toma you have

Ask where you found it:

Where you found it	Which toma
In a Spanish or Portuguese sentence, with a thing to take after it (toma el vaso)	The command: “take!”
In a sentence, with a person before it (ella toma)	The present tense: “she takes”
In a sentence, with a drink after it	Drinking
Alone, with exclamation marks	The interjection: “take that!” or “serves you right”
After la or una	The noun: a capture, a dose, an outlet or a take
On a cheese board or an Italian menu	The cheese
As someone’s name	Thomas
In a song title	Check the artist: the 2004 Pitbull track with Lil Jon is one of several called “Toma”

08Quick answers

09Use this

10Quick quiz

How we checked this · Last checked October 2026

• Spanish meanings are from the Real Academia Española's online dictionary; the 39 senses of tomar were counted on its page in September 2026.
• Portuguese meanings are from the Priberam dictionary; Italian from Treccani and the Toma Piemontese rules in the Gazzetta Ufficiale. Translations are ours.
• Song credits are from Billboard's chart history, Apple Music and Spotify. We did not look for interviews about any of the songs, so the page says nothing about what their makers meant.
• Surname origins are from the Dictionary of American Family Names, read through Ancestry.

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11Sources