Word.ws English Dictionary

take the Chiltern Hundreds

take the Chiltern Hundreds verb: to vacate one's seat in the House of Commons (since resignation is not permitted), under the legal fiction of being appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown": the ancient office of Crown Steward for the Chiltern Hundreds, in modern times a mere sinecure.

Verb

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

  1. (UK) To vacate one's seat in the House of Commons (since resignation is not permitted), under the legal fiction of being appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown": the ancient office of Crown Steward for the Chiltern Hundreds, in modern times a mere sinecure.

Forms of take the Chiltern Hundreds

third-person singular presenttakes the Chiltern Hundreds
present participletaking the Chiltern Hundreds
pasttook the Chiltern Hundreds
past participletaken the Chiltern Hundreds

Questions about take the Chiltern Hundreds

What does take the Chiltern Hundreds mean?
Take the Chiltern Hundreds means to vacate one's seat in the House of Commons (since resignation is not permitted), under the legal fiction of being appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown": the ancient office of Crown Steward for the Chiltern Hundreds, in modern times a mere sinecure.
What part of speech is take the Chiltern Hundreds?
Take the Chiltern Hundreds is a verb.
What is the past tense of take the Chiltern Hundreds?
The past tense of take the Chiltern Hundreds is took the Chiltern Hundreds.

Words near take the Chiltern Hundreds in the dictionary

  1. take the bull by the horns
  2. take the cake
  3. take the cash and let the credit go
  4. take the chair
  5. take the chill off
  6. take the Chiltern Hundreds
  7. take the cloth
  8. take the con
  9. take the count
  10. take the coward's way out
  11. take the cross

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take the Chiltern Hundreds (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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