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Take arms   /teɪk ɑrmz/   Listen
Take arms

verb
1.
Commence hostilities.  Synonyms: go to war, take up arms.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Take arms" Quotes from Famous Books



... majesty of himself, the mayor, and of the priest had been flouted and insulted, and how Colonel della Rebbia had put himself at the head of a Bonapartist plot, to change the order of succession to the throne, and to excite peaceful citizens to take arms against one another—crimes provided against by Articles 86 and 91 ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee

... course of gratuitous lectures on astronomy for a popular audience. The social feeling that inspired this disinterested act showed itself in other ways. He suffered the penalty of imprisonment rather than serve in the national guard; his position was that though he would not take arms against the new monarchy of July, yet being a republican he would take no oath to defend it. The only amusement that Comte permitted himself was a visit to the opera. In his youth he had been a playgoer, but he shortly came ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley

... Reformation did for the Scottish people. Witchcraft, instead of being a mere article of faith, became enrolled in the statute-book; and all good subjects and true Christians were called upon to take arms against it. The ninth parliament of Queen Mary passed an act in 1563, which decreed the punishment of death against witches and consulters with witches, and immediately the whole bulk of the people ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... yielded, he persistently refused to submit to Edward and his armies. As he had been the first to take arms, he was the last to keep the field, and for some years he continued to maintain himself among the woods and hills of the Highlands, holding his own for more than a year after all the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... to Amphipolis, a city of Macedonia near the sea, and to the northward and eastward of the place where he had embarked. When Pompey arrived at the port he sent proclamations to the shore, calling upon the inhabitants to take arms and join his standard. He did not, however, land, or take any other measures for carrying these arrangements into effect. He only waited in the river upon which Amphipolis stands long enough to receive a ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott

... of the world to love, as though men should take arms against the song of a bird, or plot against the opening of ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... his administration and his conduct towards the vanquished party in the civil war, he showed a wonderful moderation and clemency. For while Pompey declared that he would consider those as enemies who did not take arms in defence of the republic, he desired it to be understood, that he (45) should regard those who remained neuter as his friends. With regard to all those to whom he had, on Pompey's recommendation, given any command in the army, he left them at perfect liberty to go ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... many soldiers who risk life on the battle field. For the worst foe to fight and conquer is Ridicule; and he and others in high places have attackted Fashion so entrenched in the solid armour of Habit that most public men wouldn't have dasted to take arms agin it. ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley

... stolen; and some he had obtained by writing in feigned names to ask after the characters of servants or curates. He now drew up a paper purporting to be an Association for the Restoration of the banished King. This document set forth that the subscribers bound themselves in the presence of God to take arms for His Majesty, and to seize on the Prince of Orange, dead or alive. To the Association Young appended the names of Marlborough, of Cornbury, of Salisbury, of Sancroft, and of Sprat, Bishop of Rochester and Dean ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to be—that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms ..." Hamlet, Act ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris

... forty knights. She fixed her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were opened to her by Adelais, the queen-dowager, now married to William de Albini, Earl of Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans to take arms in every county of England. [MN 1139. 22d Sept. Insurrection in favour of Matilda.] Adelais, who had expected that her daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater force, became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... the whole business it was that poor Don Ippolito should come to his rescue in this fashion, and as it were offer to succor him in his extremity. He perceived the shamefulness of suffering such help; it would be much better to starve; but he felt cowed, and he had not courage to take arms against this sarcastic destiny, which had pursued him with a mocking smile from one lower level to another. He rubbed his forehead and brooded upon the picture. At least it would be some comfort to be rid of ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... Piedmontese are masters of Cluse. A large body of mountaineers have joined them. At Annecy the women have cut down the liberty pole and burnt the archives of the club and commune. At Chambery, the people wanted to do the same, but they forced the sick in the hospitals to take arms and thus kept ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the first to inspire terror among the inhabitants by incursions inshore. The cruise of the little Ranger showed that the British, when they ravaged the coast of New England, might expect effective retaliation on their own shores; and the capture of the Drake inspired France, then about to take arms in support of the American cause, by the realization of what they themselves had longed to do—to worst England on the high seas—with increased respect for their allies. It filled Great Britain with wild, exaggerated, and unjust condemnation of Paul Jones, who has been looked upon ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... the ear, or conceived in the mind, being an industrious custom of children and childish people which lapses in the age of much idle reading, the making of a material image is the still more diligent and more sedulous act, whereby the primitive man controls and caresses his own fancy. He may take arms anon, disappointed, against his own work; but did he ever do that work ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... II. writes to Louis de Beaumont, bishop of Durham, reproaching a noble like him for not defending his bishopric any better against the Scotch than if he were a mutterer of prayers like his predecessor. Command is laid upon bishop Louis to take arms and go and camp on the frontier. In the second half of the same century, Henry le Despencer, bishop of Norwich, hacks the peasants to pieces, during the great rising, and makes war in Flanders for the benefit of ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... Cytherea armed, "O Cyprian, wilt thou that we go so to judgment?" and she, laughing softly, "why should I lift a shield in contest? if I conquer when naked, how will it be when I take arms?" ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... may arise from persons disaffected to the Government," in April and May 1675. It was actually proposed by this Bill to make compulsory on all officers of Church or State, and on all members of both Houses, an oath, not only declaring it unlawful upon any pretence to take arms against the King, but swearing to endeavour at no time the alteration of the government in Church and State. To that logical position had the Royalist spirit come within fifteen years of the Restoration; Charles II., according to Burnet, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... administration of justice too feeble to redress them. The most effectual protection against violence and oppression was often found to be that which the valour and generosity of private persons afforded. The same spirit of enterprise which had prompted so many gentlemen to take arms in defence of the oppressed pilgrims in Palestine, incited others to declare themselves the patrons and avengers of injured innocence at home. When the final reduction of the Holy Land under the dominion of infidels put an end to these foreign expeditions, the latter ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... to give, that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler on the whole to suffer The old exchange of trinkets, gauds and kickshaws, Or to take arms against this Christmas nuisance, And, by opposing, end it? To buy—to give— No more; and by that gift to say we end The Christmas obligations to our friends We all are heir to! To buy—to give; To give—perchance to ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells

... is made known to us by an accidental mention of it in 2 Sam. xxi. 1-11. The motive which induced Saul to take arms against the Gibeonites is immediately apparent when we realise the position occupied by Gideon between Judah and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... shrines and images of saints and martyrs, and so would make their credulous proselytes believe, that if they pay their devotion to St. Christopher in the morning, they shall be guarded and secured the day following from all dangers and misfortunes: if soldiers, when they first take arms, shall come and mumble over such a set prayer before the picture of St. Barbara, they shall return safe from all engagements: or if any pray to Erasmus on such particular holidays, with the ceremony of wax candles, and other fopperies, he shall in a short time be ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... to wake me in the mornings coming battering at my door, and singing, 'Come awake thee, awake thee, my merry Swiss lass!' and when we were learning French fables from Miss Minnitt, we used to take arms, Bridgie and I, and walk up and down before him reciting, 'Deux compagnons presse d'argent!' It didn't make any difference whether he had the money or not—he always ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Marischal's arrival, they (not knowing but that he might have a commission superior to the Marquess of Tullibardine's) had wrote letters in a circular manner to most of their friends, acquainting them that it was the King's intentions that no body should take arms till the Spanish troops were landed in England; and therefore the Marquess declared that till then he would not stir from where he was, nor even allow any detachments to be made; and some days after, finding ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... unfortunate prince gave weight to his words; all seized their arms, and promised that they would hazard their lives for him. The cunning chancellor took the opportunity to persuade them to swear loyalty to the prince, and sent messages to others, who, he knew, were displeased with me, to take arms ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... Church, situated on Stockton Street, near Broadway. Well I remember my father, with others of the congregation—all members of the Vigilance Committee,—at the sound of the alarm-bell, rising in the midst of the sermon and striding out of the house to take arms in ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... seduced by vanity. If I look rightly within myself, never was injury done unto me by any creature, and therefore I have nought whereof to complain before Thee. But because I have many times and grievously sinned against Thee, all creatures do justly take arms against me. Therefore to me confusion and contempt are justly due, but to Thee praise and honour and glory. And except I dispose myself for this, namely, to be willing that every creature should despise and desert me, and that I should be esteemed altogether as nothing, ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis

... orator proved to be a voice and nothing more. He yielded meekly to the proclamation of the government forbidding further meetings, and his followers forsook him when they saw that he would not cross the Rubicon and take arms after words had failed. The society called "Young Ireland," formed about 1840, took up the agitation for Irish nationality, and carried it to greater lengths than O'Connell had dared. Its fiery young leaders, Smith ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... Twiggs were fanatical in their devotion to the State of their birth. The ancestors of both were among the first settlers, and both were identified with her history. The three wrote a joint letter to the President, tendering their commissions, if ordered to take arms against Georgia. This letter was placed in the hands of one who was influential with Mr. Adams, to be delivered immediately after the order should be issued to General Gaines to prevent by force of arms the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. 1959 SHAKS.: Hamlet, Act iii., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... must resign the regency, and should be pardoned in common with all offenders against the Queen. But on the day when Mary arrived at Hamilton, Murray had summoned to Glasgow the feudatories of the crown, to take arms against the insurgent enemies of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... reputed to be impregnable, whilst the emperor was apprehensive for the Low Countries and Italy. The French maxims had passed the Rhine, and might explode in the German states at the moment when the princes and people were called upon to take arms against France, and the diet of the people might prove more powerful than the diet of the kings. Dilatory measures would have the same intimidating effect on the revolutionary genius, without presenting the same dangers to ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... not his English kinsmen won lands from the Welsh near Bath or Gloucester. The first result of this change was that the king's war-band formed a far greater proportion of his military force than it had formed originally. There was still the obligation upon the whole body of the freemen to take arms, but it was an obligation which had become more difficult to fulfil, and it must often have happened that very few freemen took part in a battle except the local levies concerned in defending their own immediate neighbourhood. A military change of this kind would account for the ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... Pett. He had not contemplated the possibility of actually doing anything. Nature had made him out of office hours essentially a passive organism, and it was his tendency, when he found himself in a sea of troubles, to float plaintively, not to take arms against it. To pick up the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and fling them back was not a habit of his. He scratched his chin and said nothing. He went ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... army is within three hundred yards of the village. You must think how I feel; not four men that I really depend upon; but am determined to act brave—think of my condition. I know it is out of my power to defend the town, as not one of the militia will take arms, though before sight of the army no braver men. There is a flag at a ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... and to everyone else that civil war must shortly follow. Cruelty on one side was answered by cruelty on the other, and Palissy had thrown in his lot with the Huguenots, and by his writings as well as his words urged them to take arms against the Catholics. Perhaps the artist in him may have grieved to hear of the destruction in the beautiful churches of the carved images of the saints that were broken by axes and hammers; of the pictures that were burned, or the old illuminated ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang



Words linked to "Take arms" :   go to war, war



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