levy

present singular third person levies · participle present levying · participle past levied · past levied

1. transitiveTo impose (a tax or fine) to collect monies due, or to confiscate property.

   to levy a tax

   1 more example

   In August, the company also announced that it would begin to levy fines on other vendors on its platform who over-package their products.

   2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian

2. To raise or collect by assessment; to exact by authority.

   If they do this […] my ransom, then, / Will soon be levied.

   1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

3. To draft someone into military service.
4. To raise; to collect; said of troops, to form into an army by enrollment, conscription. etc.

   Augustine […] inflamed Ethelbert, king of Kent, to levy his power, and to war against them.

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)

5. To wage war.
6. To raise, as a siege.

   Albeit hee saw that the siege was levied

   1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “(please specify the book number)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC

7. lawTo erect, build, or set up; to make or construct; to raise or cast up.

   The new levying or inhancing of Weares Mills

   1619, Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice

plural levies

1. The act of levying.
   1. A conscription action.

      1835-1847, Connop Thirlwall, The History of Greece A levy of all the men left under sixty.

2. The things or people so levied.
   1. A tax paid in money.

      The Irish levies.

      1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC

      1 more example

      The first is that French people are more concerned about the poor health of their democracy – since the carbon levy they have campaigned for democratic reform (though this has proven harder to deliver than the tax U-turn).

      2023 November 17, Oliver Haynes, “Five years on, the world is failing to learn the gilets jaunes’ lesson about class and climate”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   2. A tax in kind.
   3. Requisitioned supplies.
   4. A body of conscripts.

      1 more example

      To make up for their losses at the battle they [the professional army of Harold II, Anglo-Saxon King of England] had gathered levies of men from the counties they passed through on their way south. […] Ranged alongside these professionals were the levies: farmers and peasants, for the most part, who had been straggling in from all over the southern counties during the previous few days [before the Battle of Hastings in 1066].

      1978, James Burke, Connections, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 48

3. obsoleteslangA shilling.

plural levies

1. PennsylvaniaUSVirginiaobsoleteMarylandThe Spanish real of one eighth of a dollar, valued at elevenpence when the dollar was rated at seven shillings and sixpence.

alternative Levie

1. A Jewish surname from Hebrew.

   1 more example

   On some level, the filmmakers behind Monster Trucks must have recognized the ill fit of Till playing a teenager, because they cast Jane Levy, a 27-year-old who can pass for younger but not a decade younger, as Meredith, a nerdy classmate of Tripp’s who moons over him as she insists on making an appointment to tutor him in biology. […] Till is somewhere on the Hemsworth spectrum (more engaging than Liam; not as charismatic at Chris), but Levy is wholly charming as his enthusiastic sidekick.

   2017 January 12, Jesse Hassenger, “A literal monster truck is far from the stupidest thing about Monster Trucks”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 27 Jan 2017

2. A male given name.
3. An unincorporated community in Washington County, Missouri, United States.
4. An unincorporated community in Jasper County, South Carolina, United States.

alternative Levie

1. A surname from Czech.

alternative Levie

1. A surname from Irish.