• (America) IPA: /ˈlɪv.ə.ɹi/
• (British) IPA: /ˈlɪv.ɹɪ/, /ˈlɪv.ə.ɹɪ/

livery

1. Any distinctive identifying uniform worn by a group, such as the uniform worn by chauffeurs and male servants.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 8:

     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.

   • By wearing livery, the brewers publicly expressed guild association and solidarity.

2. The whole body of liverymen, members of livery companies.
3. The paint scheme of a vehicle or fleet of vehicles.

   The airline's new livery received a mixed reaction from the press.

4. (US) A taxicab or limousine.
5. (legal) The delivery of property from one owner to the next.
6. (legal) The writ by which property is obtained.
7. (historical) The rental of horses or carriages; the rental of canoes; the care and/or boarding of horses for money.

   • Pegasus does not stand at livery even at the largest establishment in Moorfields.

8. (historical) A stable that keeps horses or carriages for rental.
9. An allowance of food; a ration, as given out to a family, to servants, to horses, etc.

   • 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.

10. Release from wardship; deliverance.
    • 1649, [John] Milton, [Eikonoklastes]  […], London: Printed by Matthew Simmons,  […], OCLC 1044608640 ↗:

      It concerned them first to sue out their livery from the unjust wardship of his encroaching prerogative.

11. A low grade of wool.
12. Outward markings, fittings or appearance
    • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 2:

      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:

• French: livrée
• German: Livree
• Italian: livrea, foggia
• Portuguese: libré
• Russian: ливре́я
• Spanish: librea

• French: livrée
• German: Anstrich
• Italian: livrea

livery (liveries, present participle liverying; past and past participle liveried)

1. (archaic) To clothe.

   He liveried his servants in the most modest of clothing.

livery

1. Like liver.
   • 2004, Anne DesBrisay, Capital Dining: Anne DesBrisay's Guide to Ottawa Restaurants, ECW Press ISBN 9781550226423, 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 9781401396299

     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 9780813820965, page 35

     Sulfur-containing compounds (thiols, sulfides, thiazoles, sulfur-substituted furans) can interact with carbonyl compounds to produce a livery flavor.

2. Queasy, liverish.
   • 2011, Dr Dorothy Shepherd, Homoeopathy For The First Aider, Random House ISBN 9781446489895, 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 9781448202539

     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 9781497619326

     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.