chevy

The noun is probably derived 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.[1]

The verb is derived from the noun.[2]

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃɛvi/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛvi
• Hyphenation: che‧vy

chevy (countable and uncountable, plural chevies)

1. (countable) A hunt or pursuit; a chase.
   • 1846, “Portfire” [pseudonym], “Shots from an Old Six-pounder”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XX, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 243:

     The sergeants-major were always on the watch to report us if we went out of bounds. […] The moment we saw the sergeant-major, off we scampered over hedge, ditch, bog, and ploughed land, leaving him to catch or identify us if he could! […] Of all the serjeants-major, Howe, of the C company, ran the swiftest. Howe enjoyed these chivies. He frequently omitted to report us if we gave him a good breathing.

2. (countable) A cry used in hunting.
3. (uncountable) The game of prisoners' bars.

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chevy (third-person singular simple present chevies, present participle chevying, simple past and past participle chevied)

1. (transitive) To chase or hunt.
   • 1868 January, “Miss Sophy’s Crutch”, in London Society. An Illustrated Magazine of Light and Amusing Literature for the Hours of Relaxation, volume XIII, number LXXIII, London: Office, 217, Piccadilly, W. [printed by William Clowes and Sons, […]], →OCLC, chapter I, page 76, column 1:

     […] 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.

   • 1887, F[rederick] J[ames] Furnivall, W. G. Stone, editors, The Tale of Beryn, with a Prologue of the Merry Adventure of the Pardoner with a Tapster at Canterbury. Re-edited from the Duke of Northumberland’s Unique Ms. […] (Supplementary Canterbury Tales; 1), London: Publisht for the Chaucer Society by N[icholas] Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC, marginal note, page 19:

     Hostler Jack chevies the Pardoner, who drops his pan, […]

   • 1893 (indicated as 1894), A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Naval Treaty”, in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, London: George Newnes, Limited, […], →OCLC, 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.

2. (transitive) To vex or harass with petty attacks.
   • 1869 August, [Rhoda Broughton], “Red as a Rose is She”, in Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume XXVII, London: Richard Bentley, […]; New York, N.Y.: Willmer and Rogers, →OCLC, chapter XVI, page 29:

     St. John remains in the outer room, looks at the clock, […] chivies the tabby cat; counts the flitches of bacon hanging from the rafters; […]

   • 1883, “Nessmuk” [pseudonym; George Washington Sears], Charles F. Orvis and A. Nelson Cheney, compilers, “Trout: Meeting Them on the ‘June Rise’”, in Fishing with the Fly: Sketches by Lovers of the Art, with Illustrations of Standard Flies, Manchester, Vt.: C. F. Orvis, →OCLC, page 167:

     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.

   • 1898, W[illiam] W[ymark] Jacobs, “Pickled Herring”, in Sea Urchins, London: Lawrence and Bullen, Ltd. […], →OCLC, 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."

3. (transitive) To maneuver or secure gradually.
4. (transitive) Alternative spelling of chivvy
   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, “Stop Him!”, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, 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.

   • 1889, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “Of the Swordsman with the Brown Jacket”, in Micah Clarke: […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co […], →OCLC, 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.

   • 1973, B. W. E. Alford, “A New Generation and a New Firm”, in W. D. & H. O. Wills and the Development of the UK Tobacco Industry, 1786–1965, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. […], →ISBN; reprinted as Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2006, →ISBN, page 55:

     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.

   • 1981 November, Gardner Dozois, Jack C[arroll] Haldeman II, “Executive Clemency”, in Omni, New York, N.Y.: Omni Publications International; republished as Gardner Dozois, Geodesic Dreams: The Best Short Fiction of Gardner Dozois, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, October 1992, →ISBN, page 35:

     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.

5. (intransitive) To scurry.

   Synonym: scamper

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