# livery
## English
### Etymology 1

From Middle English livery, liveree, from Anglo-Norman liveree, from Old French livree. Compare modern French livrée.

#### Alternative forms

* liveray
* liverie (obsolete)

#### Pronunciation

* Audio (US):(file)
* (US) IPA: /ˈlɪ.və.ɹi/
* (UK) IPA: /ˈlɪv.ɹi/, /ˈlɪ.və.ɹi/
* Rhymes: -ɪv(ə)ɹɪ
* Rhymes: -ɪvəɹi

#### Noun

livery (countable and uncountable, plural liveries)
* Any distinctive identifying uniform worn by a group, such as the uniform worn by chauffeurs and male servants.
** 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 8, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:And while the moralist, who is holding forth on the cover ( an accurate portrait of your humble servant), professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an undertaking.
** 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:“I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. What I won't stand is to have them togs called a livery. […] ”
** 1996, Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600:By wearing livery, the brewers publicly expressed guild association and solidarity.
** 2021 April 29, Jamie Jackson, “Edinson Cavani and Bruno Fernandes help Manchester United hit Roma for six”, in The Guardian‎:The 35-year-old must adore this ground as this was his sixth strike in total here: four of these were previously in Manchester City livery, the other in that of Wolfsburg.
* The whole body of liverymen, members of livery companies.
* The paint scheme of a vehicle or fleet of vehicles.
    The airline's new livery received a mixed reaction from the press.
** 1961 October, “Car carriage by rail - at home and abroad: 1. New B.R. "covered wagons"”, in Trains Illustrated, page 594:The glass fibre body has the advantage of lightness and obviates the need for painting as the material is self-coloured in the standard B.R. maroon livery.
** 2024 January 13, David Pilling, “Revenge of the moderators”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 15:The roads were jammed with matatu minibuses sporting cartoonish liveries, and trucks billowing black smoke into the dazzling African light.
* (US) A taxicab or limousine.
* (law) The delivery of property from one owner to the next.
* (law) The writ by which property is obtained.
* (historical) The rental of horses or carriages; the rental of canoes; the care and/or boarding of horses for money.
** 1876, James Russell Lowell, “Keats”, in Among My Books. Second Series., Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 305:[…] Pegasus does not stand at livery even at the largest establishment in Moorfields.
* (historical) A stable that keeps horses or carriages for rental.
* An allowance of food; a ration, as given out to a family, to servants, to horses, etc.
** 1825, George Cavendish, edited by Samuel Weller Singer, Life of Cardinal Wolsey:The emperor's officers every night went through the town from house to house whereat any English gentleman did repast or lodge, and served their liveries for all night: first, the officers brought into the house a cast of fine manchet [white bread], and of silver two great post, and white wine, and sugar.
* Release from wardship; deliverance.
** 1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC:It concerned them first to sue out their livery from the unjust wardship of his encroaching prerogative.
* A low grade of wool.
* Outward markings, fittings or appearance
** 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 2”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

##### Derived terms

* coign and livery
* devil's livery
* livery stable
* livery yard
* relivery
* servant out of livery
* sue one's livery

##### Translations
#### Verb

livery (third-person singular simple present liveries, present participle liverying, simple past and past participle liveried)
* (archaic) To clothe.
    He liveried his servants in the most modest of clothing.

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

From Middle English *livery, from Old English lifriġ (“relating to the liver, livery”), equivalent to liver +‎ -y.

#### Adjective

livery (comparative more livery, superlative most livery)
* Like liver.
** 2004, Anne DesBrisay, Capital Dining: Anne DesBrisay's Guide to Ottawa Restaurants, ECW Press, →ISBN, page 19:We are happy for the chopped mushrooms within the warm goose liver paté, for the coarse, highly seasoned wedge has a robust livery flavour the 'shrooms manage to ease.
** 2010, Christopher Kimball, Fannie's Last Supper: Re-creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 Cookbook, Hachette UK, →ISBN:A second test was similar, but we brought the internal temperature up to 130 degrees; the texture was chewy, the meat tasted livery, and had not melted.
** 2010, Fidel Toldr, Handbook of Meat Processing, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 35:Sulfur-containing compounds (thiols, sulfides, thiazoles, sulfur-substituted furans) can interact with carbonyl compounds to produce a livery flavor.
* Queasy, liverish.
** 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 204:He woke feeling livery, and aware that he had overslept the morning.
** 2011, Dr Dorothy Shepherd, Homoeopathy For The First Aider, Random House, →ISBN, page 58:The biliousness and livery feeling will disappear and the feeling of joy and happiness will be the reward.
** 2011, Alec Waugh, Fuel for the Flame, A&C Black, →ISBN:He felt fresh and buoyant. When he was young, and had taken a siesta, he had felt livery for a couple of hours afterwards, with a tongue like a chicken run
** 2014, Emily Hahn, China to Me: A Partial Autobiography, Open Road Media, →ISBN:To like everyone and to be happy with anyone was a virtue and its own reward, but I realized now that for weeks I had been feeling livery, impatient, restless.

### Anagrams

* verily