take exception

present singular third person takes exception · participle present taking exception · past took exception · participle past taken exception

1. To take offense; to object or protest.

   I think he took exception to the joke about environmentalists.

   5 more examples

   I take exception to the assumption that simply because I am young I am not able to discern fact from fiction.

   I am sorry to learn that the senior medical staff of the Dreadnought Hospital take exception to portions of Sir Henry Burdett's letter […] which was published in the Times of July 11th.

   1898 July 20, Percival A. Nairne, letter, published in the Lancet of 1898 December 10, page 1575

   In the same year, 1844, negotiations were begun to strengthen the North Union's position by an amalgamation with the Liverpool & Manchester and Grand Junction companies, but at the eleventh hour the shareholders took exception to the rather overbearing ways of the Grand Junction, and backed out.

   1960 February 28, M. D. Greville and G. O. Holt, “Railway Development in Preston—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 100

   […] the body of a deceased Indian, wrapped in a blanket and reposing on the limbs of an old tree in the sandhills. Horatio Walker, then President of the Club and generally so sympathetic with artists, seemingly took exception to it, and Morris felt the silent criticism […]

   1984, Jean S. McGill, Edmund Morris, Frontier Artist, Dundurn Press, →ISBN, page 165

   Upset, about 20 Kuala Lumpur-based judges met on 25 March and decided that Salleh should write to the king explaining their position. The king apparently took exception to the letter or to the manner in which it was sent […]

   1989, “Asia Yearbook”, in Far Eastern Economic Review, page 167

2. To object to; to disagree with.

   1 more example

   A correspondent of The American has taken exception to the use, in a recent paragraph in this column, of the word “electrocution.” The writer of the paragraph referred to is conscious that the word, like other etymological hybrids, lacks euphony and consistency; but during the formative period succeeding the introduction of a new idea not yet provided with a verbal exponent, the safest course is to follow general popular usage. The idea must be expressed, and the choice lies between a cumbrous word and a cumbrous sentence, the former of which seems the lesser evil. “Electrocution” has been widely used, even by scientific men, while the only plausible alternative thus far suggested—“electrothany”—though possessing the merit of unmixed ancestry, is inadequate in that it carries no penal signification.

   1890 August 23, “Weekly notes”, in The American, volume 524, Robert Ellison, page 370