Word.ws English Dictionary

take the shilling

Syllables: take the shil·lingUK/teɪk ðə ˈʃɪlɪŋ/

take the shilling verb: to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer.

take the shilling: to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer
Image: Horace Nicholls, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

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. (UK, historical, intransitive) To enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer.
    • [O]ne fellow was jilted by his miſtreſs and took the ſhilling in deſpair; […]1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Mohun Appears for the Last Time in This History”, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. […] , volume III, London: […] Smith, Elder, & Company, […], →OCLC, page 135
    • I have taken the King's shilling, but perhaps if you came for me they would let me go back with you. I was a fool when I did it. I don't want to be in the army.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Strife in Love”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC, part II, page 182
  2. (broadly, dated, intransitive) To enlist as a soldier of any military force; to join the armed forces.
  3. (broadly, intransitive, generally) To be on the payroll of an organization; to work for an organization.
    • 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...2020 June 17, Christian Wolmar, “The Strategy of ‘Don’t Use the Railways’ Must be Reversed …”, in Rail, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 44

Forms of take the shilling

third-person singular presenttakes the shilling
present participletaking the shilling
pasttook the shilling
past participletaken the shilling

Origin of take the shilling

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.

Words that rhyme with take the shilling

10 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about take the shilling

What does take the shilling mean?
Take the shilling means to enlist as a soldier in the British army or navy by accepting a shilling from a recruiting officer.
What part of speech is take the shilling?
Take the shilling is a verb.
How do you pronounce take the shilling?
Take the shilling is pronounced /teɪk ðə ˈʃɪlɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the past tense of take the shilling?
The past tense of take the shilling is took the shilling.

Words near take the shilling in the dictionary

  1. take the ride
  2. take the roll
  3. take the rough with the smooth
  4. take the salute
  5. take the shadow for the substance
  6. take the shilling
  7. take the shine out of
  8. take the stage
  9. take the stand
  10. take the studs
  11. take the stump

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take the shilling (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-take the shilling.oga.

Cite this entry: “take the shilling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_the_shilling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.