take the veil

English

take the veil (third-person singular simple present takes the veil, present participle taking the veil, simple past took the veil, past participle taken the veil)

(idiomatic) To retire into a convent and live as a nun.
- 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VII, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 185:
  “ […] I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.”