Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To divide. Often used with up: divvied up the loot.
- n. A share or portion.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A dividend; an amount to be divided or shared by the members of a party or ring.
- To go shares.
Wiktionary
- n. A share or portion
- n. UK A dividend, especially one from the Co-op
- v. To divide something into portions.
- n. A foolish person.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. British a dividend, especially one paid by a cooperative society.
- v. colloq. divide up among a group; distribute; -- often followed by up.
WordNet 3.0
- n. short for dividend; especially one paid by a cooperative society
Etymologies
- First appearance in San Diego's Daily World, 22 Sept 1872, as "divy," apparent abbreviation for "division." (Wiktionary)
- Shortening and alteration of dividend. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I'm expecting a divvy from the Harpenden Building Society”
“We were pretty much crowded but were going to 'divvy' on the space.”
“Brother John then turns in the order to the treasurer and gets twelve dollars for it, and then they 'divvy' on the thing.”
“Yes, count, and see if the rascals made a fair 'divvy' of it," added the captain.”
“De driver called a divvy wid de cop comin ', an I had ter shell -- an' wot he left de cop pinched.”
“Halcor sought to cut its fine, which was originally €9.16 million $13 million, for participating in an effort to fix prices and divvy up the market for copper plumbing tubes.”
The Wall Street Journal: EU Cartel Fines Elicit Human-Rights Argument
“That was a moment when a defeated Ottoman Empire gave the victorious Europeans the power to divvy up the Middle East and to create new countries both for diasporan Jews and for the Arabs, who had been dominated by the Turks.”
“Not that long ago Tychus would have insisted on taking the extra time to divvy up the money equally.”
“Regardless of what a song “should” cost based on how you divvy up the expenses made in making the first copy is not the same as Marginal Cost.”
“In your divvy up $1000 game theory scenario, the extra factor is the (ahem) principle of the thing: you describe B as motivated by irrational factors, which is essentially the same thing.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘divvy’.
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Y
What a -Y does to an otherwise common, dull word
zany, waxy, wavy, arty, chewy, bony, boxy, cozy, nosy, foxy, wiry, junky and 321 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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I didn't expect to see THAT letter do...
aa, savvy, divvy, powwow, matchhead, skiing, hajj, trekking, continuum, vacuum, bathhouse, fishhook and 37 more...
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Potpourri
eponymous, aa, pulchritude, gizmo, macabre, sui generis, solecism, solipsism, eldritch, samizdat, queue, obsequious and 469 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2995 more... -
Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
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Fun with Apocopes
Words created by removing the end of a longer or original word. See also Fun with Aphesis.
abs, ad, bio, veg, veggie, tux, auto, bike, carbs, pecs, bro, sis and 186 more...
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Words that delight me
tepid, perfunctory, trope, benign, inordinate, bewildering, ersatz, boon, delectable, apt, scuttlebutt, sequester and 398 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Favorite Five-Letter Words
Just what it sounds like. My favorites. Five letters.
ennui, barfy, samba, schwa, beefy, chunk, queef, spasm, skulk, bowel, elbow, fruit and 235 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Oofy
States of being
seeress, honey bucket, donkeyman, poopyhead, halfwit, vixenish, galoot, hoity toity, shitkicker, miserabilist, wanker, clueless and 261 more...
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GRE
partisan, erudite, insular, cosmopolitan, imperturbable, facetious, recapitulate, repudiate, inscrutable, baseness, bailiwick, freeloader and 315 more...
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2 V
bovver, chivvy, civvy, divvy, flivver, improvvisatrice, navvy, revved, savvy, sivvens, skivvies
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pretty sounds
vermouth, floozy, bungalow, iota, petrify, perpetural, ricochet, chartreuse, shirk, shiver, shatter, tussle and 44 more...
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Verbs
divvy, rive, calve, surmise, forfeit, bandy, wade, trumpet, raze, stultify, jettison, dissimulate and 11 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for divvy.
uselessness Sounds like it could be short for either word, seeing as how one is a noun and one is a verb. I mean heck, isn't divide really just the verb form of dividend anyway? Oct 22, 2007
sonofgroucho Often shortened to div, in my experience. Oct 22, 2007
yarb Also British slang for a slow or gormless person. E.g. "Bob you divvy, Africa's a continent not a country!" Oct 22, 2007
skipvia I've always thought of it as short for divide, as in "divvy up the spoils." However, I did know a girl in high school with the given name of "Divvie." Her father was a insurance broker and she was his dividend, according to her. Oct 22, 2007
seanahan Different dictionaries list this as either a shortening of dividend or divide. Oct 22, 2007