Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To vex or harass with petty attacks: political opponents who chivvied the senator.
- v. To maneuver or secure gradually: "had spent two weeks chivvying this division toward combat readiness” ( Tom Clancy).
- v. To scurry.
- n. A hunt or chase.
- n. A hunting cry.
Wiktionary
- v. To subject to harassment or verbal abuse.
- v. To coerce, as by persistent request.
- v. To sneak up on or rapidly approach.
- v. To pursue as in a hunt.
- n. A goad.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. same as chivy.
WordNet 3.0
- v. annoy continually or chronically
Etymologies
- Variant of chevy, a hunt, hunting cry, from Chevy Chase, title of a ballad about a border skirmish, from Cheviot Chase, a large unenclosed hunting tract in the Cheviot Hills.
Examples
“He doles out brisk advice and the occasional terse chivvy.”
The Guardian: Alain Ducasse gives Paris's poorest women a lifeline
“So what can be done to chivvy along a reclusive pop genius?”
The Guardian: Don't Give Up, Dr Dre's new material will be arriving soon!
“If Cameron wants to liven things up, he should chivvy his hosts on a more intriguing question.”
“The nationwide vaccine campaign was deemed superfluous on the basis that it was for them to chivvy vulnerable patients into getting the jab.”
The Guardian: Flu outbreak: Lessons from the shivers | Editorial
“Given so many of us have our own private health and fitness goals it might help to chivvy people along.”
“To chivvy the unconjugal to conjugate may to be store up greater unhappiness.”
“Both are keen to promote excellence in schools, and this week Hunt asked Gove to chivvy academies where they "are onaverage teaching one third less GCSEs in history and geography" than bog-standard comprehensives.”
“Walking on will only disturb them again and again, and having no wish to chivvy them the length of the beach we detour along the track through the dunes, regaining the sands with the gulls behind us and miles of beach ahead.”
“As the tension eased he jerked his head, and warily the toughs began to chivvy the laborers into the trucks again.”
“Soon after we arrived, when Joe had gone below stairs to chivvy the porters about our bags, and Annette and I were alone, I excused myself to visit the privy along the way.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chivvy’.
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Hunting cries
tantara, yoicks, tantivy, tallyho, chivvy, hoics, tally-ho, chivy, chevy, soho, hue, halloo and 3 more...
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respelt
'He spent the greater part of his life campaigning to have respelt those words that LOOK as though they are spelt wrongly but aren't.'
Re Otto Tibbit's father, fourteen times Scrabble champio...skiing, vacuum, freest, eczema, gnu, diarrhoea, taxiing, piing, safariing, qamchiing, dooziing, hongiing and 49 more...
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Vocab
goat rodeo, fardel, quotidian, deportment, opprobrium, deracinated, inculcate, desultory, orotund, chivvy, diktat, casuistry and 24 more...
madmouth "My dear, I should like to stick you full of barbed arrows like a p-p-pin cushion...Where do you lurk? I shall come down your burrow and ch-chivvy you out like an old st-t-toat." -Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited, Waugh Apr 5, 2011
chained_bear Another usage on chivvied. Oct 14, 2008
seanahan From Isaac Asimov's essay "Skewered", "I resisted that, along with repeated nudges from others in the years that followed... I was cornered by a fan and has Skewes' number requested of me. So I gave in. Eleven years of chivvying is enough." Sep 10, 2007