"take the shilling" meaning in English

See take the shilling in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

IPA: /teɪk ðə ˈʃɪlɪŋ/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Audio: En-us-take the shilling.oga [General-American] Forms: takes the shilling [present, singular, third-person], taking the shilling [participle, present], took the shilling [past], taken the shilling [participle, past]
Rhymes: -ɪlɪŋ Etymology: A reference to the practice during the 18th and 19th century of a recruiting officer getting a person to enlist in the British Army or Royal Navy by accepting (or being tricked into accepting) a shilling, which was then a soldier’s daily pay. The practice was officially ended in 1879. Etymology templates: {{langname|en}} English, {{senseno|en|dated}} sense 2.1, {{circa2|1917|short=1}} c. 1917 Head templates: {{en-verb|take<,,took,taken> the shilling}} take the shilling (third-person singular simple present takes the shilling, present participle taking the shilling, simple past took the shilling, past participle taken the shilling)
  1. (British, military, historical) To enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer. Tags: British, historical, intransitive Categories (topical): Military, Coins Related terms: King's shilling, Queen's shilling, impressment, military service, the world Translations (to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer): värväytyä šillingistä (Finnish), cymryd swllt y Brenin (Welsh), cymryd swllt y Frenhines (Welsh), listio yn y fyddin (Welsh)
    Sense id: en-take_the_shilling-en-verb-en:historical Disambiguation of Coins: 43 27 30 Categories (other): British English Topics: government, military, politics, war Disambiguation of 'to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer': 88 11 1
  2. (by extension)
    (military, dated) To enlist as a soldier of any military force; to join the armed forces.
    Tags: broadly, dated, intransitive Categories (topical): Military
    Sense id: en-take_the_shilling-en-verb-en:dated Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 31 59 10 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 29 62 9 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 33 54 13 Topics: government, military, politics, war
  3. (by extension)
    (generally) To be on the payroll of an organization; to work for an organization.
    Tags: broadly, intransitive Translations (to be on the payroll of an organization): olla palkkalistoilla (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-take_the_shilling-en-verb-63EryV0z Disambiguation of 'to be on the payroll of an organization': 2 2 96

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for take the shilling meaning in English (6.4kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      },
      "expansion": "English",
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        "1": "1917",
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  "etymology_text": "A reference to the practice during the 18th and 19th century of a recruiting officer getting a person to enlist in the British Army or Royal Navy by accepting (or being tricked into accepting) a shilling, which was then a soldier’s daily pay. The practice was officially ended in 1879.",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "takes the shilling",
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    {
      "form": "taking the shilling",
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    {
      "form": "took the shilling",
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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        [
          "army",
          "army"
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        [
          "navy",
          "navy#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "accept",
          "accept"
        ],
        [
          "shilling",
          "shilling#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "recruiting",
          "recruit#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "officer",
          "officer#Noun"
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        "(British, military, historical) To enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer."
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          "_dis1": "82 7 11",
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          "_dis1": "82 7 11",
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          "_dis1": "88 11 1",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
          "word": "värväytyä šillingistä"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 11 1",
          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
          "word": "cymryd swllt y Brenin"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 11 1",
          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
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        },
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          "_dis1": "88 11 1",
          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
          "word": "listio yn y fyddin"
        }
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        "To enlist as a soldier of any military force; to join the armed forces."
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        [
          "join",
          "join#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "armed forces",
          "armed forces"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension)",
        "(military, dated) To enlist as a soldier of any military force; to join the armed forces."
      ],
      "senseid": [
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          "text": "My earlier warnings, both in RAIL and in an article I wrote for The Times, have not fallen on deaf ears. There are many people (I suspect most) in the [rail] industry who recognise that telling people not to use their trains will cause lasting damage, but they are silenced publicly because they are now taking the Government's shilling.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be on the payroll of an organization; to work for an organization."
      ],
      "id": "en-take_the_shilling-en-verb-63EryV0z",
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          "payroll",
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        "(by extension)",
        "(generally) To be on the payroll of an organization; to work for an organization."
      ],
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      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "2 2 96",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to be on the payroll of an organization",
          "word": "olla palkkalistoilla"
        }
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    }
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      "tags": [
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        "Received-Pronunciation"
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    {
      "rhymes": "-ɪlɪŋ"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-us-take the shilling.oga",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ef/En-us-take_the_shilling.oga/En-us-take_the_shilling.oga.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/En-us-take_the_shilling.oga",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
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      "text": "Audio (GA)"
    }
  ],
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    "British Army",
    "Royal Navy"
  ],
  "word": "take the shilling"
}
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    "English terms with audio links",
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        "To enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer."
      ],
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          "enlist",
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          "accept",
          "accept"
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          "shilling",
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          "recruit#Verb"
        ],
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        "(British, military, historical) To enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer."
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        "To enlist as a soldier of any military force; to join the armed forces."
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        "(military, dated) To enlist as a soldier of any military force; to join the armed forces."
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          "text": "My earlier warnings, both in RAIL and in an article I wrote for The Times, have not fallen on deaf ears. There are many people (I suspect most) in the [rail] industry who recognise that telling people not to use their trains will cause lasting damage, but they are silenced publicly because they are now taking the Government's shilling.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
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      ],
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        "(by extension)",
        "(generally) To be on the payroll of an organization; to work for an organization."
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    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-ɪlɪŋ"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
      "word": "värväytyä šillingistä"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
      "word": "cymryd swllt y Brenin"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
      "word": "cymryd swllt y Frenhines"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer",
      "word": "listio yn y fyddin"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to be on the payroll of an organization",
      "word": "olla palkkalistoilla"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "BBC",
    "British Army",
    "Royal Navy"
  ],
  "word": "take the shilling"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.