take kindly

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

take kindly (third-person singular simple present takes kindly, present participle taking kindly, simple past took kindly, past participle taken kindly) [+ to (object)]

1. (idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) To like, accept, or condone.
   • 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xiii:

     An English passenger, taking kindly to me, drew me into conversation. He was older than I. He asked me what I ate, what I was, where I was going, why I was shy, and so on. He also advised me to come to table. He laughed at my insistence on abjuring meat, […]

   • 1961 January, “The North-East London electrification of the Great Eastern Line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 19:

     The host of business travellers between Bishops Stortford and London would scarcely take kindly to devious routing via the Southbury line; on the other hand, it is not desirable that they should overcrowd the business trains to and from Cambridge.

   • 2014, Sean Platt, David W. Wright, Available Darkness:

     It seemed to John like the sort of place where the people all knew one another, were likely to have guns for protection, and rarely took kindly to strangers.

   • 2020, Diana Klebanon, Franklin L. Jonas, Diana Klebanow, People's Lawyers: Crusaders for Justice in American History:

     The young Darrow did not always take kindly to his father's strict ways. He was a disciplined student only when he liked what he was doing.

Usage notes

• Sometimes used colloquially of inanimate objects: "the equipment did not take kindly to being stored in a damp room for months on end".

References

• “not take kindly to”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.