Brewer's: Chivy

A chase in the school game of “Prisoners' Base” or “Prison Bars.” Probably a gipsy word. One boy sets a chivy, by leaving his bar, when one of the opposite side chases him, and if he succeeds in touching him before he reaches “home,” the boy touched becomes a prisoner.

Chivy

or Chivvy. Slang for the face. Much slang is due to rhyme, and when the rhyme is a compound word the rhyming part is sometimes dropped and the other part remains. Thus Chivy [Chevy]-chase rhymes with “face,” by dropping “chase” chivy remains, and becomes the accepted slang word. Similarly, daisies=boots, thus: daisy-roots will rhyme with “boots,” and by dropping “roots,” the rhyme, daisy remains. By the same process sky is the slang for pocket, the compound word which gave birth to it being “sky-rocket.”

“Christmas” the slang for a railway guard, as “Ask the Christmas,” is, of course, from the rhyme

“Christmas-card”; and “raspberry” the slang for heart, is from the rhyme “raspberry-tart.”

Then came a knock at the Rory o'More [door], Which made my raspberry beat.

Other examples given under their proper heads.

Related Content Allusions Foreign Words and Phrases Latin and Greek Word Elements Names: Their Origins and Meanings Old Testament Names Mythology Ancient Greek Literature & Mythology The Bible (King James version) The Koran (translation by J. M. Rodwell) Shakespeare's Plays Tales from Shakespeare (Charles and Mary Lamb) Frequently Misspelled Words Frequently Mispronounced Words Easily Confused Words Writing & Language