Meaning of ship money | Babel Free

Definitions

A tax applied to coastal towns for their defence in wartime.

countable, historical, uncountable

Examples

“The imposition of ship money without Parliamentary consent was one of the causes of the English Civil War.”

“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?”

CEFR level