chivvy
Pronunciation Verb
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Pronunciation Verb
chivvy (chivvies, present participle chivvying; past and past participle chivvied)
- (transitive, Britain) To coerce or hurry#Verb|hurry along, as by persistent request#Noun|request. [from late 18th c.]
- 1889, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “Of the Swordsman with the Brown Jacket”, in Micah Clarke: […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co […], OCLC 729680187 ↗, page 316 ↗:
- 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.
- (transitive, Britain) To subject#Verb|subject to harassment or verbal abuse#Noun|abuse.
- 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, “Stop Him!”, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, OCLC 999756093 ↗, page 447 ↗:
- He wos allus willin fur to give me somethink he wos, though Mrs. Sangsby she was allus a chivying on me—like everybody everywheres.
- 1898, W[illiam] W[ymark] Jacobs, “Pickled Herring”, in Sea Urchins, London: Lawrence and Bullen, Ltd. […], OCLC 477208446 ↗, page 160 ↗:
- "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."
- (transitive, Britain) To sneak up on or rapidly approach#Verb|approach.
- (transitive, Britain) To pursue as in a hunt#Noun|hunt. [from mid 19th c.]
- Synonyms: chase, hunt
- to chivvy the fox
- 1893 (indicated as 1894), A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Naval Treaty”, in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, London: George Newnes, Limited, […], OCLC 4828780 ↗, page 215 ↗:
- [I]t seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket.
- Russian: досажда́ть
chivvy (plural chivvies)
- (Britain) Something that encourages one to act#Verb|act; a goad#Noun|goad, a spur#Noun|spur.
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.008