sb. pl. Chiefly Sc. Forms: α. 6 veveres, wewers, 7 vievers, viewers, β. 6 viwers, wivers, wiwers, wiuerse, 6–7 viuers, 6, 8–9 vivers (6 vivars). See also VIVRES. [ad. OF. (also mod.F.) vivres, pl. of vivre food, sustenance, substantive use of vivre to live]. Food, provisions, victuals, eatables.
Only Sc. till the 19th century; its later literary currency is probably due to its frequent occurrence in the Waverley Novels.
α. 1536. Queen Margaret, in St. Papers Hen. VIII. (1836), V. 43. Þa ma be portative be wattyr for carying of þar veveres and uthyres necyssares.
a. 1578. Lindesay (Pitscottie), Chron. Scot. (S.T.S.), I. 78. Ane armie … weill furnischit witht all kynd of weweris and munitioun.
1609. Skene, Reg. Mag., Stat. Rob. I., 20 b. He sall cume … weill furnished with siluer to bye vievers for his sustentation.
β. 1551. Reg. Privy Council Scot., I. 114. The greit … derth … of all kynd of victuallis and viveris.
1582–8. Hist. James VI. (1804), 168. The stoir of thair victualles being daylie scand, they directit, as afore, sum horsmen to scour the fields for viuers.
1622. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. I. 108. Viuers are very chepe heere and thay are dere with the enimy.
1725. Records of Elgin (New Spald. Cl., 1903), I. 420. The prices of fyring, fewell, fish, flesh and other vivers are latelie arisen to an exorbitant hight.
1756. Mrs. Calderwood, in Coltness Collect. (Maitl. Club), 149. Every thing of vivers is dear in Holland but vegetables.
1814. Scott, Wav., xlii. I’ll join you at three, if the vivers can tarry so long.
1860. Motley, Netherl., xiii. (1868), II. 164. He bitterly complained of the unwillingness of the country-people to furnish vivers, waggons, and other necessaries.
1887. Beatty-Kingston, Music & Manners, II. 18. You shall have your beer, vivers, and tobacco cheap.
fig. 1588. A. King, trans. Canisius’ Catech., 87. This is our viuers during the pilgramedg of this transitorie lif.
