levy

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛ.vi/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ɛvi

From Anglo-Norman leve, from Old French levee, from lever (“to raise”).

levy (third-person singular simple present levies, present participle levying, simple past and past participle levied)

1. (transitive) To impose (a tax or fine) to collect monies due, or to confiscate property.

   to levy a tax

   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎:

     In August, the company also announced that it would begin to levy fines on other vendors on its platform who over-package their products.

2. To raise or collect by assessment; to exact by authority.
   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     If they do this […] my ransom, then, / Will soon be levied.

3. To draft someone into military service.
4. To raise; to collect; said of troops, to form into an army by enrollment, conscription. etc.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC:

     Augustine […] inflamed Ethelbert, king of Kent, to levy his power, and to war against them.

5. To wage war.
6. To raise, as a siege.
   • 1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “(please specify the book number)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC:

     Albeit hee saw that the siege was levied

7. (law) To erect, build, or set up; to make or construct; to raise or cast up.
   • 1619, Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice:

     The new levying or inhancing of Weares Mills

levy (plural levies)

1. The act of levying.
   • 1835-1847, Connop Thirlwall, The History of Greece

     A levy of all the men left under sixty.

2. The tax, property, or people so levied.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 12, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The Irish levies.

   • 2023 November 17, Oliver Haynes, “Five years on, the world is failing to learn the gilets jaunes’ lesson about class and climate”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     The first is that French people are more concerned about the poor health of their democracy – since the carbon levy they have campaigned for democratic reform (though this has proven harder to deliver than the tax U-turn).

Contraction of elevenpence.

levy (plural levies)

1. (US, obsolete, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia) The Spanish real of one eighth of a dollar, valued at elevenpence when the dollar was rated at seven shillings and sixpence.

• levee
• Levi

• Elvy, vley

lev- +‎ -y; from the same root as leveä (“wide”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈleʋy/, [ˈle̞ʋy]
• Rhymes: -eʋy
• Syllabification^(key): le‧vy

levy

1. plate (thin, flat object of uniform thickness)
2. board (flat construction material supplied in sheets, such as chipboard, or a sheet of such material)
3. slab (thick, flat piece of material)
4. (computing, electronics) disk (device for storing data)
5. (music) recording, disc (piece of music stored on a disc, or a disc on which music is saved)
6. Ellipsis of keittolevy (“hotplate”).

• (plate): laatta
• (musical recording): levytys (music); savikiekko, vinyyli, äänilevy (physical disc)

• (recording): älppäri, pitkäsoittolevy, single

• Häkkinen, Kaisa (2004) Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja [Modern Finnish Etymological Dictionary] (in Finnish), Juva: WSOY, →ISBN

• “levy”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-02

• elvy