take post

English

Verb

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

1. (intransitive, archaic) 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.
   • 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:

     […] 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.

2. (intransitive, archaic, figurative) To travel as quickly as possible by whatever means.
   • 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 Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

     I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
     And presently took post to tell it you:

   • 1629, Zachary Boyd, The Last Battell of the Soule in Death‎^[1], Edinburgh: the heirs of Andro Hart, page 1253:

     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.

   • 1650, William Beech, A View of Englands Present Distempers Occasioned by the Late Revolution of Government in This Nation‎^[2], London: William Raybould, page 121:

     I shall leave these directions and take post to a conclusion.

   • 1937, Nathan Schachner, chapter 2, in Aaron Burr: A Biography‎^[3], New York: A.S. Barnes, published 1961, page 17:

     He took ill with a fever when he finally returned to Princeton, but, scorning mundane ailments, he took post to Philadelphia, once more on behalf of his beloved College.

3. (intransitive, archaic, figurative) To begin to serve any position, particularly (UK military, historical) to be named a post-captain.
4. (intransitive, archaic, figurative) To establish oneself in a defensive or offensive position.
   • 1687, Roger Manley, The Turkish History […] by Richard Knolles with a Continuation to This Present Year MDCLXXXVII‎^[4], London: Tho. Basset, page 323:

     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...

   • 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^[5], London: J. Dodsley, pages 59–60:

     […] 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.

   • 1792, Richard Cumberland, Calvary: or the Death of Christ‎^[6], London: C. Dilly, Book 2, p. 52:

     ISCARIOT at the table’s lowest foot
     Took post, where best he might escape that glance,
     From whose intelligence no heart could hide
     Its guilty meditations:

   • 1897, Mark Twain, chapter 51, in Following the Equator […] ‎^[7], New York: American Publishing Company, page 494:

     Benares is a religious Vesuvius. In its bowels the theological forces have been heaving and tossing, rumbling, thundering and quaking, boiling, and weltering and flaming and smoking for ages. But a little group of missionaries have taken post at its base, and they have hopes.

   • 1926, T. E. Lawrence, chapter 105, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom‎^[8], Garden City, NY: Doubleday, published 1936, page 571:

     Our watchers took post on the crest, looking out over the harvested plains to the Hejaz Railway.