take the king's shilling
1take the king's shilling — see under ↑shilling • • • Main Entry: ↑king …
2take the King's shilling — ► take the King s (or Queen s) shilling Brit. enlist as a soldier. [ORIGIN: with reference to the former practice of paying a shilling to a new recruit.] Main Entry: ↑shilling …
3take the King's shilling — archaic enlist in the army. → king s shilling …
4take the Queen's shilling — ► take the King s (or Queen s) shilling Brit. enlist as a soldier. [ORIGIN: with reference to the former practice of paying a shilling to a new recruit.] Main Entry: ↑shilling …
5take the King's (or Queen's) shilling — Brit. enlist as a soldier. [with ref. to the former practice of paying a shilling to a new recruit.] → shilling …
6King's shilling — The King s shilling for many years a soldier s daily pay, before stoppages was the shilling given to recruits of the British army and the Royal Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries. The expression to take the King s shilling meant that a man… …
7king's shilling — noun (in phr. take the King s shilling) archaic enlist in the army. [from the practice of giving new recruits a shilling.] …
8King's shilling — /kɪŋz ˈʃɪlɪŋ/ (say kingz shiling) noun 1. the, a shilling given to a new recruit to the British army, acceptance of which constituted, until 1879, a binding enlistment. –phrase 2. take the King s (or Queen s) shilling, British Obsolete to enlist… …
9Shilling (British coin) — In the United Kingdom, a shilling was a coin used from the reign of Henry VII until decimalisation in 1971. Before decimalisation there were twenty shillings to the pound and twelve pence to the shilling, and thus 240 pence to the pound. At… …
10shilling — ► NOUN 1) a former British coin and monetary unit equal to one twentieth of a pound or twelve pence. 2) the basic monetary unit of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. ● not the full shilling Cf. ↑not the full shilling ● take the King s (or Queen s)… …
