How to understand the meaning of "place" in "take place" and "take the place of" ?
Why does "take place" use "place" not "the place " and “take the place of” use "the place" ? What's the difference between "place" and "the place" ?
Learn English – How to understand “take place” in the following sentence
phrase-meaning
Best Answer
When an event takes place it simply means that it happened or occurred. I consider this to be idiomatic because this has nothing to do with the definition of either take or place. I can't find a source that agrees, so I'd say that, at the very least, it's a phrase with only one possible meaning that's frozen in time so to speak. In other words, these words only have one application, which is unrelated to their traditional definitions.
With takes the place [of], place means stead, as in instead. It's another way of saying substitutes for, replaces, assumes the role of, or takes the role of. It's literal, with place meaning position rather than a location.