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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

chivvy.

To coerce or hurry along, as by persistent request.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈt͡ʃɪvi/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. To coerce or hurry along, as by persistent request.

    UK · transitive
  2. To subject to harassment or verbal abuse.

    UK · transitive
  3. To sneak up on or rapidly approach.

    UK · transitive
  4. To pursue as in a hunt.

    UK · transitive
    to chivvy the fox
Where this word comes from

From chivy, chevy (“to chase; to race, scamper”), from chivy, chevy (“a chase, hunt, pursuit”), probably from the title of The Ballad of Chevy Chase, first published in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549); the ballad is about a hunt taking place on a chase (“large country estate where game may be hunted”) in the Cheviot Hills between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, and is thought to allude to the Battle of Otterburn in 1388.

noun/ˈt͡ʃɪvi/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. Something that encourages one to act; a goad, a spur.

    UK · transitive
Where this word comes from

From chivy, chevy (“to chase; to race, scamper”), from chivy, chevy (“a chase, hunt, pursuit”), probably from the title of The Ballad of Chevy Chase, first published in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549); the ballad is about a hunt taking place on a chase (“large country estate where game may be hunted”) in the Cheviot Hills between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, and is thought to allude to the Battle of Otterburn in 1388.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.