Forms: 5 coue, coueye, 6–7 covie, coovie, (6 cooui), 7 couvie, covye, 5–8 covy, 5– covey. [ME., ad. OF. covée, mod.F. couvée brood = It. covata:—Rom. type *cub-āta, lit. a hatching, f. L. cubāre, It. covare, F. couver to sit, incubate, hatch.]
1. A brood or hatch of partridges; a family of partridges keeping together during the first season. (Sometimes also of grouse, ptarmigan, etc.)
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 96/2. Covey of pertrychys (H. P. coue, or couy).
1486. Bk. St. Albans, B iij b. Let yowre spanyellis fynde a Couy of partrichys.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, III. (Arb.), 77. This cooui rauenouse [of harpies] … They gripte in tallants the meat.
1589. Pappe w. Hatchet, E ij. There is not a better Spanniell in England to spring a couie.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 219. The partridges … together with their coovie of young birds.
1614. T. Adams, Devil’s Banquet, 119. Sinne is … like the Partridges, which flye by Coueys.
1720. Gay, Poems (1745), I. 19. The fluttering coveys from the stubble rise.
1766. Pennant, Zool., Partridge (1812), I. 365. A partridge followed by a large covey of very young birds.
1835. Sir J. Ross, Narr. 2nd Voy., ix. 132. A covey of ptarmigans.
1868. Dilke, Greater Brit., I. 141. The sage-brush … gave shelter to a few coveys of sage-hens.
2. fig. and transf. A family, party or set (of persons or things).
c. 1590. Greene, Fr. Bacon, v. (1630), 16. Here’s … a couie of Cockscombes.
a. 1616. Beaum. & Fl., Elder Bro., IV. iv. Who are they in the corner? As I live, a covey of fiddlers.
1641. Sanderson, Serm. (1681), II. App. 9. There are so many Covies of New Doctrines sprung up ever and anon.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, III. 124. I never did spring such a Covye of Mathematicians all at once.
1827. De Quincey, Murder, Wks. IV. 76. The whole covey of victims was thus netted.
1859. Thackeray, Virgin., xxvii. A whole covey of trumps was ranged in one corner.
