ppl. a. [f. as prec. + -ING2.] That takes, in various senses: see the verb.
1. Seizing, receiving; getting something into one’s possession; rapacious. rare.
1483. Cath. Angl., 377/2. Takynge, capax, accipiens, & cetera.
1598. Fam. Vict. Hen. V., ii. 16. I dare not call him theefe, but sure he is one of these taking fellowes.
1835. Court Mag., VI. 168/2. There were taking men, who imposed upon him at pleasure; for he did not prosecute.
2. That takes the fancy or affection; captivating, engaging, alluring, fascinating, charming, attractive. (The most usual sense: now colloq.)
1605. B. Jonson, Volpone, I. i. That colour Shall make it much more taking.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., VI. x. (1848), 376. He will ever consider the taking’st Notions he can frame of vertue, more as Engagements to it, than Arguments of it.
a. 1721. Prior, Songs, xv. 11. Phillis has such a taking way, She charms my very soul.
1757. Foote, Author, I. Wks. 1799, I. 137. You must provide me with three taking titles for these pamphlets.
1824. Dibdin, Libr. Comp., 771. The plates … are bright, spirited, and very ‘taking.’
1882. Pebody, Eng. Journalism, xix. 143. The secret of immediate success in a public writer is said to be mediocre ideas and a taking style.
1883. ‘Alan Muir,’ Golden Girls, I. iv. 29. Yet it was a taking face after all, ready for good-nature, and lit by a pair of eyes of honest brown.
3. Seizing or affecting injuriously; † blasting, pernicious (obs.); infectious, ‘catching.’ rare.
1605. Shaks., Lear, II. iv. 166. Strike her yong bones, You taking Ayres, with Lamenesse.
a. 1620. Fletcher & Massinger, False One, IV. iii. I am yet too taking for your company.
1636. Featly, Clavis Myst., xvii. 220. The diseases of the mind are more taking than the diseases of the body.
4. With adverbs, as taking-away, -in, -off, etc.: see TAKE v. 76–90. (Here often blending with the vbl. sb.)
1530. Palsgr., 279/1. Takyng away, ablatif.
1841. Savage, Dict. Printing, 791. Boys are employed in machine printing to take away the sheets as they are printed…; this is also styled Taking-off, and the boys taking-off boys.
1882. Worc. Exhib. Catal., iii. 38. Printing Machine with … automatic taking-off apparatus.
1884. Southward, Pract. Printing, 462. When printed,… [the sheets] are deposited in a pile on the taking-off board.
1886. J. Paton, in Encycl. Brit., XX. 845/1. The twisted twine is drawn off … and is wound on taking-up bobbins.
Hence Takingly adv., in a taking manner; engagingly, alluringly, attractively; Takingness, taking quality or character, engagingness, alluringness, attractiveness.
1607. Beaumont, Woman Hater, IV. ii. I will gather my self together with my best phrases, and so I shall discourse in some sort *takingly.
1681. Flavel, Meth. Grace, xxix. 510. This will represent religion very beautifully and takingly to such as are yet strangers to it.
a. 1711. Ken, Psyche, Poet. Wks. 1721, IV. 161. Verse, by which Lust is takingly instill’d.
1841. Lit. Gaz., 13 March, 171/3. Although this lady’s [Madame Balfe’s] pronunciation of English is takingly imperfect, she gives the sense fully and forcibly.
1656. Artif. Handsom., 41. Outward adornings. have something in them of a complaisance and *takingnesse.
1673. E. Coles, God’s Sovereignty (1753), 146. A plausible Outside, and fair Shew in the Flesh, are no Argument of Truth in the Bottom: Takingness with Nature, should render things suspicious to us, rather than approved.
1810. Alicia T. Palmer, Daughters of Isenberg, II. vi. 312. It was in moments like the present when the natural warmth of his feelings particularly manifested itself in his engaging countenance and animated language, that what Sigismond had des- cribed as his characteristic ‘takingness of manner,’ was so eminently conspicuous—so irresistibly felt.
1841. E. Chitty, Fly Fisher’s Text-bk., x. 214. I cannot, at present, admit it as proved, that colour has anything to do with the ‘takingness’ of a fly.
1890. J. H. Stirling, Philos. & Theol., i. 18. A simple takingness that is divine.
