休む usage with を？

Question

I'm a beginner to Japanese, and I just learned about transivity. I read that the verb 休む is intransitive, and it means "to take a break from." I also read that intransitive verbs cannot take an object, with the exception of location used with motion verbs. How come 休む can be used with を then?

Here is an example sentence I saw:

彼女は学校を休んだ。

I was thinking that maybe the "from" part of "to take a break from" is what allows it to use を but I wasn't too confident in that since it's supposed to be an intransitive verb. Is it some kind of exception, or something I may not have learned about yet? Clarification on the verb and definition and any misconceptions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

休む is basically intransitive, but it has this transitive usage, too. You can say 会社を休む, 会議を休む, 学校を休む, and so on. Transitivity of most verbs are straightforward, but there are many tricky ones which you simply have to memorize. See this answer for similar examples.

Also note that many intransitive verbs related to movement can take を, in which case を is more of a location marker rather than an object marker. See: Making sense of transitive usage of 行く and 来る - 「を行く」 and 「を来る」 and この道をまっすぐ行ってください。 Why を and not で?