gyve
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English *give, *gyve (found only in plural gives, gyves (“shackles; fetters”)). Of uncertain origin, possibly from low dialect taking from Celtic; compare Welsh gefyn (“fetter, shackle”), Irish geibbionn (“fetters”), geimheal (“fetter, chain, shackle”). The modern pronunciation with /dʒ/ is due to the spelling.[1]
The verb is from Middle English given, gyven (“to shackle”), from the noun.
Pronunciation
Noun
gyve (plural gyves)
- (literary) A shackle or fetter, especially for the leg.
- c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:
- […] I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
- 1845, William Lloyd Garrison, “The Triumph of Freedom”, in The Liberty Bell, Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, page 192:
- With head and heart and hand I’ll strive
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,—
The spoiler of his prey deprive,—
- 1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, chapter 15, in Don’t Point That Thing at Me, New York: The Overlook Press, published 2004, page 126:
- Our gyves were removed and our possessions returned to us, except for my Banker’s Special.
Verb
gyve (third-person singular simple present gyves, present participle gyving, simple past and past participle gyved)
- To shackle, fetter, chain.
- 1856, Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour, Letters to Squire Pedant, in the East, page 13:
- Not gyved with connubial relations, I entered upon my migration entirely isolated, with the exception of a canine quadruped whose mordacious, latrant, lusorious, and venatic qualities, are without parity.
- 2008, LD Brodsky, “A Devotee of the Southern Way of Making Love”, in Sheri L. Vadermolen, editor, The Complete Poems of Louis Daniel Brodsky: Volume Four, 1981-1985, Time Being Books, →ISBN, page 419:
- Gyved to a squeaky swivel seat in my office, …
Derived terms
Translations
References
- James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Gyve, sb.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume IV (F–G), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 1173, column 3.
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