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bevy

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 11 August 2012, 11 August 2013, 11 August 2014

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English bevey, of uncertain origin, possibly Anglo-Norman.

Noun

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bevy (plural bevies)

  1. (collective) A group of animals, especially quail or other birds.
    • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 217:
      The pond was another favourite place to visit. Moorhens strutted from the neighbouring bushes, and a bevy of Muscovy ducks, a study in black, white and red, waddled from the farmyard hard by to enjoy a refreshing splash.
  2. (collective) A group, especially a large group, and especially a group of attractive girls or 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.
    • 2011, Ryan Zimmerman, I was a Bad Kid - The True Tales of a Deceptive Child (→ISBN), page 3:
      [H]e'd always have this drawer full of random crap. Chinese yo-yos, candy, handcuffs—just a bevy of stuff—and I'd usually convince him to give me some of it. I wasn't pushy, but he had TONs of it, so come 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.
    • 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.
    • 2022, Dennis C. Rasmussen, Fears of a Setting Sun, page 189:
      When the younger Adams laid out an ambitious program of internal improvements in his First Annual Message to Congress in December 1825—including not just a bevy of new roads and canals but also a national university, a naval academy, an astronomical observatory, and a new Department of the Interior to oversee all these projects—Jefferson was beside himself. He drafted a remonstrance against this proposed program, […]
Translations
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Etymology 2

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See bevvy.

Noun

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bevy (plural bevies)

  1. (Liverpool) Alternative form of bevvy.

Further reading

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