gyve

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English[edit]

A woman's ankles gyved with gyves.

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

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[edit]

Noun[edit]

gyve (plural gyves)

  1. (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[1], 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[2], 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[edit]

gyve (third-person singular simple present gyves, present participle gyving, simple past and past participle gyved)

  1. 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.
    • 1864, “A Fast-Day at Foxden”, in Atlantic Monthly Journal‎[3], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2006:
      "Say, rather, to melt the iron links which gyve soul to body," said Clifton ...
    • 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[4], Time Being Books, →ISBN, page 419:
      Gyved to a squeaky swivel seat in my office, …

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Gyve, sb.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes IV (F–G), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 1173, column 3.

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Verb[edit]

gyve (present tense gyv, past tense gauv, supine gove, past participle goven, present participle gyvande, imperative gyv)

  1. Alternative form of gyva
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