To impose (a tax or fine) to collect monies due, or to confiscate property.
to levy a tax
In August, the company also announced that it would begin to levy fines on other vendors on its platform who over-package their products.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian:
2
To raise or collect by assessment; to exact by authority.
If they do this […] my ransom, then, / Will soon be levied.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
3
To draft someone into military service.
4
To raise; to collect; said of troops, to form into an army by enrollment, conscription. etc.
Augustine […] inflamed Ethelbert, king of Kent, to levy his power, and to war against them.1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
5
To wage war.
6
To raise, as a siege.
Albeit hee saw that the siege was levied1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “(please specify the book number)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC:
7
Law To erect, build, or set up; to make or construct; to raise or cast up.
The new levying or inhancing of Weares Mills1619, Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice:
1835-1847, Connop Thirlwall, The History of Greece A levy of all the men left under sixty.
› The things or people so levied. › A tax.
3
A tax paid in money.
The Irish levies.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
The first is that French people are more concerned about the poor health of their democracy – since the carbon levy they have campaigned for democratic reform (though this has proven harder to deliver than the tax U-turn).2023 November 17, Oliver Haynes, “Five years on, the world is failing to learn the gilets jaunes’ lesson about class and climate”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
4
A tax in kind.
› The things or people so levied.
5
Requisitioned supplies.
6
A body of conscripts.
To make up for their losses at the battle they [the professional army of Harold II, Anglo-Saxon King of England] had gathered levies of men from the counties they passed through on their way south. […] Ranged alongside these professionals were the levies: farmers and peasants, for the most part, who had been straggling in from all over the southern counties during the previous few days [before the Battle of Hastings in 1066].1978, James Burke, Connections, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 48:
Pennsylvania, US, Virginia, Obsolete The Spanish real of one eighth of a dollar, valued at elevenpence when the dollar was rated at seven shillings and sixpence.