take shipping

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

1. archaicTo embark on a ship.

   1818, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, London: Lackington et al., Volume 3, Chapter 1, pp. 13-14, We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasburgh to Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for London.

   4 more examples

   1569, Richard Grafton, A Chronicle at Large, London: Richard Tottle and Humphrey Toye, “Henrie the thirde,” p. 140, […] dyuerse noble men of the land, which helde against those statutes, were ridden toward Douer, and there entended to haue taken shipping for feare of the Barons

   […] at last, finding that those who marched through the continent met with an ocean of miserie, he thought better to trust the wind and sea then the Greeks; and taking shipping safely arrived in Palestine […]

   1639, Thomas Fuller, The History of the Holy War, Cambridge: Thomas Buck, Book 2, Chapter 28, p. 80

   […] I again left my native Country, and took shipping in the Downs on the 20th Day of June 1702.

   1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Great Storm Described, the Long-Boat Sent to Fetch Water, the Author Goes with It to Discover the Country. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), pages 149-150

   […] the pilgrim enthusiasts of our party […] could scarcely eat, so anxious were they to “take shipping” and sail in very person upon the waters that had borne the vessels of the Apostles.

   1869, Mark Twain, chapter 47, in The Innocents Abroad, Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, pages 495–496