take post

Verb

take post (third-person singular simple present takes post, present participle taking post, simple past took post, past participle taken post)

1. (archaic, intransitive) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take, post. To travel (typically rapidly) by posthorse or post chaise; to arrive and assume a military post.
   • […] I had my Health and Limbs […] and might, with Ease, travel a Day or two on foot, and having a good Certificate of being in perfect Health, might either hire a Horse, or take Post on the Road, as I thought fit.1722 March, H[enry] F[oe] [pseudonym; Daniel Defoe], A Journal of the Plague Year: […], London: […] E[lizabeth] Nutt […]; J. Roberts […]; A. Dodd […]; and J. Graves […], →OCLC, page 14
2. (archaic, figuratively, intransitive) To travel as quickly as possible by whatever means.
   • I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
     And presently took post to tell it you:c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
   • No man can [te]ll how soone hee shall bee arraigned in the great Iudge his Consistorie: The day of this life wherein onelie wee can worke, declineth a pace: The fearfull night cloud hath taken post. So soone as it shall come, man shall bee discharged to worke any more.1629, Zachary Boyd, The Last Battell of the Soule in Death, Edinburgh: the heirs of Andro Hart, page 1253
3. (archaic, figuratively, intransitive) To begin to serve any position, particularly (UK military, historical) to be named a post-captain.
4. (archaic, figuratively, intransitive) To establish oneself in a defensive or offensive position.
   • The besieged sprung a Mine under the Assailants first line, which buried Captain Kalkreiter, and some Souldiers. But seeing they could not take post for want of Earth […] it was thought expedient to make a retreat...1687, Roger Manley, The Turkish History […] by Richard Knolles with a Continuation to This Present Year MDCLXXXVII, London: Tho. Basset, page 323
   • […] through their whole controversy with the Court of Directors, they do not so much as hint at their ever having seen any other paper from lord Macartney, or any other estimate of revenue, than this of 1781. To this they hold. Here they take post; here they entrench themselves.1785, Edmund Burke, Mr. Burke’s speech, on the motion made for papers relative to the directions for charging the Nabob of Arcot’s private debts to Europeans, London: J. Dodsley, pages 59–60