chivvy
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From chivy, chevy (“to chase; to race, scamper”), from chivy, chevy (“a chase, hunt, pursuit”), probably from the title of The Ballad of Chevy Chase, first published in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549); the ballad is about a hunt taking place on a chase (“large country estate where game may be hunted”) in the Cheviot Hills between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, and is thought to allude to the Battle of Otterburn in 1388.
Inflected forms:
form: chivvies
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: chivvying
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: chivvied
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: chivvied
pos: verb
tags: past
form: chivy
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: chevy
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: shivvy
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: chivvies
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To coerce or hurry along, as by persistent request.
pos: verb
tags: UK
transitive
examples: Odd's wouns! it was a proper hunt. Away went my gentlemen, whooping like madmen, with their coat skirts flapping in the breeze, chivying on the dogs and having a rare morning's sport.
Some customers could now be relied upon to send in their orders regularly and, apart from having to chivy those who had fallen behind with their payments, this allowed travellers to concentrate their energies on securing new customers and on recovering those who had been lost to competitors.
He headed for home, walking a little faster now, as if chivied along by some old cold wind that didn't quite reach the sunlit world.
[H]e would chivvy us into position, prodding us gently but forcefully with his stick.
For 11 years now he [Tony Blair] has only one approach – to lead from the front and then to confront, challenge, and chivvy the Labour Party into backing him.
We don't have time to respond to emails or any attempts to chivvy us up – sorry.
She's helpful and rude in equal measure as she chivvies me into insisting that Heather include a particular pair of gold metallic wedges that I really think is representative of Dad's style […]
gloss: To subject to harassment or verbal abuse.
pos: verb
tags: UK
transitive
examples: He wos allus willin fur to give me somethink he wos, though Mrs. Sangsby she was allus a chivying on me—like everybody everywheres.
So when I was done, and the fishing was as good as the start, I cut a long "staddle," with a bush at the top, and I just went for that school of trout. I chevied, harried and scattered them, up stream and down, until I could not see a fish.
"They're chevying that poor animal [a dog] again," he said hotly. "It's scandalous." / "Rupert can take care of himself," said the mate calmly, continuing his meal. "I expect, if the truth's known, it's him 's been doin' the chevying."
Toby played the lightly chivvied ‘husband’ very sweetly, and Sophie claimed him in the childish ways of someone experimenting with her power, with little exasperations and innuendos.
gloss: To sneak up on or rapidly approach.
pos: verb
tags: UK
transitive
gloss: To pursue as in a hunt.
pos: verb
tags: UK
transitive
examples: to chivvy the fox
The police were kept out of sight, and the amusements of the mob consisted chiefly in forming bodies which rushed from one end of the Park to the other, to the great injury of other rioters; or in hunting or "chivvying" any footman or remarkable person who should venture among them; some of these unfortunates were much injured.
[…] John, before taking his departure, had left the stable door and the front gate open, and that Tartar [a horse], having no halter on, had quietly walked out into the high road, and had been chevied up and down by the boys for the last quarter of an hour.
[I]t seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket.
With Mr. [Ernest] Hemingway, we at once enter the front line of modern literary warfare. We are face to face with the largest and wildest of the game that Mr. Wyndham Lewis chivvies through the warrens of the Rive Gauche and with the only one of its fauna on whose tail he has tried to place a pinch of commendatory salt, apparently in vain.
He rode slowly towards them with a sulky expression on his face, chivvying the polo-ball with small strokes.
gloss: Something that encourages one to act; a goad, a spur.
pos: noun
tags: UK
transitive
examples: Although Mr [Paul] Hatcher is not sure how popular the site will be he has designed it to handle up to 10,000 requests an hour. "It's just there to act as a chivvy to London Underground," he said.
Derived words: chivvier
Translations: