bevy
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English bevey, of uncertain origin, possibly Anglo-Norman.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]bevy (plural bevies)
- (collective) A group of animals, in particular quail.
- (collective) A small group of persons, especially of girls and women.
- 1755, Adam Fitz-Adam, The World, number CXXI, London, page 789:
- In the midſt of all this buſtle, I was ſtruck with the appearance of a large bevy of beauties and women of the firſt fashion, who with all the perfect confidence of good breeding, inſhrined themſelves in the ſeveral temples dedicated to the Cyprian Venus[.]
- 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume II, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 365:
- The same messenger who summoned the whole bevy of renegades, Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland, and Mulgrave, could just as easily have summoned Clarendon.
- 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the first (The Maiden), pages 22–23:
- The two elder of the brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a moment, but the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on.
- 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly[1], volume 188, number 26, page 36:
- For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.
- (collective) A large group or collection.
- 2017 January 12, Brian Fung, “Why AT&T’s top execs visited Trump Tower”, in The Washington Post[2]:
- Thursday's session makes AT&T the latest high-profile company to meet with Trump after the president-elect's series of job-related talks with firms such as Softbank, Carrier and a bevy of tech companies including Google, Facebook and Apple.
Translations
[edit]large group of birds
|
group of persons
large group or collection
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Further reading
[edit]- “bevy”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms with unknown etymologies
- English terms derived from Anglo-Norman
- English 2-syllable words
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- English terms with homophones
- English lemmas
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- en:Fowls