1704. Steele, Lying Lover, ii. 1. My dear friend, you don't take me—Your friendship outruns my explanation.
1731. Swift, Death of Dr. Swift. He takes up with younger folks, Who for his wine will bear his jokes. Ibid. (1710), To Archbishop King. We must take up with what can be got.
1743. Pococke, Descr. East, 1. 165. An officer . . . takes up all persons he finds committing any disorders, or that cannot give an account of themselves.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas (1812), 1. iii. Everyone betaking himself to his heels for safety.
1753. Richardson, Grandison, i. 39. Taken in, as he calls it, rather by the eyes than by the understanding.
1763. Foote, Mayor of Garratt, ii. Don't all the world cry, . . . 'Miss Molly Jollop to be married to Sneak; to take up at last with such a noodle as he'?
1766. Brooke, Fool of Quality, i. 370. He . . . perfectly counterfeited or took off, as they call it, the real Christian.
1777. Sheridan, School for Scandal, iii. 1. The great point, as I take it, is to be exorbitant enough in your demands. Ibid. (1778), Rivals, iii. 1. An obstinate, passionate, self-willed boy!—Who can he take after? Ibid. (1779), Critic, i. 1. A band of critics, who take upon them to decide for the whole town.
1782. Burney, Cecilia, v. 55. You take me? [on propounding a pun]. Ibid., A take-in.
d. 1797. Walpole, Letters, 11. 28. She has lived so rakish a life that she is forced to go and take up.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 13. Why do you take on so? . . . You ought rather to bless your stars for your good luck. Ibid. 15. Leonarda and Domingo were completely taken in.
1812. Coombe, Syntax, i. 4. Hostess. I took you in last night, I say. Syntax. 'Tis true; and if this bill I pay You'll take me in again to-day.
1814. Austen, Mansfield Park, v. I know so many who have married . . . who have found themselves entirely deceived. . . . What is this but a take in? . . . But I would not have him taken in: I would not have him duped.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, xv. I dinna believe he speaks gude Latin neither; at least he disna take me up when I tell him the learned names of the plants. Ibid. (1828), Scott, Aunt Margaret's Mirror, i. Her sister hurt her own cause by taking on, as the maid-servants call it, too vehemently.
1837. Dickens, Pickwick, xlii. Mr Mivvins, who was no smoker . . . remained in bed, and, in his own words, 'took it out in sleep.'
1843. Macaulay, Mirabeau [Edin. Rev.]. They took up with theories because they had no experience of good government.
1847. Robb, Squatter Life. 'Why, Polly, what's the matter, gal?' inquired he; 'what in thunder makes you take on so?'
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. 1. 31. If . . . I catch him, I take it out of him on the spot. I give him a jolly good hiding. Ibid. 1. 326. Anybody that looks on the board looks on us as cheats and humbugs, and thinks that our catalogues are all takes-in.
1852. Bee (Boston), 29 July. The 'Life Boat,' a weekly sheet in this city, takes the "Bee" to do for its course in relation to the Liquor Law.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays, 1. vii. They tried back slowly . . . beginning to feel how the run had taken it out of them.
1865. Dickens, Mutual Friend, iv. 13. Mr. and Mrs. Boffin . . . took it out of [the baby] in a shower of caresses.
1867. Macleod, Starling, v. 'I do not take you up, sir,' replied the Sergeant.
1868. Whyte-Melville, White Rose, 11. xxii. There's Missis walking about the drawing-room, taking on awful.
1873. Carleton, Farm Ballads, 19.
And all of them was flustered, and fairly
taken down, And I for a time was
counted the luckiest man in town.
1878-80. M'Carthy, Hist. Own Times, xli. Some critics declared that Mr. Cobden had been simply taken in; that the French Emperor had 'bubbled' him.
1883. Gentleman's Mag., June, 569. It is curious that so able a man could have believed that he could in this way take in the British public.
