Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
ship money en · NOUN
Meanings
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(countable, historical, uncountable) A tax applied to coastal towns for their defence in wartime.
When I stood by the side of Hampden, contending against a heavy oppression, and for an undeniable right, who could have thought that his refusal to pay that twenty shillings ship-money would be the first act of a resistance that was destined to arouse a whole nation, and kindle civil war from one end of our island to the other?
1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 30–31:The imposition of ship money without Parliamentary consent was one of the causes of the English Civil War.
Forms