Forms: 5 bevey, beuye, beue, 5–7 beuy, 6 beve, (bevvy), 6–7 beavie, beauie, beuie, bevie, 7–9 beavy, 5– bevy. [Derivation and early history unknown; ME. bevey, beue answers in form to OF. bevee, buvee ‘drink, drinking’ (in mod.F., a drink of water thickened with meal for beasts). This seems to correspond, with difference of conjugation (bevée:—*bevāta), to It. bevuta ‘drinking-bout, a draught’; cf. also beva ‘drink, liquor, potion, drench’ (Baretti) with beva ‘a beavie’ in Florio. To explain the Eng. sense, it has been conjectured that bevy may have passed from the sense of ‘drinking-bout’ to ‘drinking-party,’ and to ‘party’ or ‘company’ generally: but of this there is no known evidence. These old names for companies of men and animals are however very fantastical and far-fetched, as may be seen in the first three works quoted.]
1. The proper term for a company of maidens or ladies, of roes, of quails, or of larks.
c. 1430. Bk. Hawkyng, in Rel. Ant., I. 296. A covey of pertrich, a bevey of quayles, and eye of fesaunts.
c. 1470. Hors, Shepe, & G. (1822), 30. A beuye of larkes, A beuye of ladyes, A beuye of quayles, A beuye of roos.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, F v j. A Beuy of Ladies, a Beuy of Roos, a Beuy of Quaylis.
1579. E. K., in Spenser’s Sheph. Cal., April, 118, gloss. They say a Beuie of Larkes.
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., I. iv. 4. None heere he hopes In all this Noble Beuy.
1667. Milton, P. L., XI. 582. A Beavie of fair Women, richly gay.
1678. Phillips, s.v. Bevy, The Foresters say a Bevy of Roes.
1725. Pope, Odyss., VI. 98. Around, a beavy of bright damsels shone.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Beavy of Quails, a Term that imports only a Brood of young Quails.
1808. Scott, Marm., II. xiv. A bevy of the maids of heaven.
2. transf. A company of any kind; rarely, a collection of objects.
1603. B. Jonson, Entertm., Wks. (1692), 314. A bevy of Fairies.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., King & No K., V. 59. What a beavy of beaten slaves are here?
1688. Villiers (Dk. Buckhm.), Chances, Wks. (1714), 110. When you’ve purchas’d A Beavy of those Butter-prints.
a. 1774. Goldsm., Double Transf., 53. She kept a bevy Of powder’d coxcombs.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 365. The whole bevy of renegades.
1861. Beresf. Hope, Eng. Cathedr. 19th C., 164. A basilica sheltering a bevy of minor altars is an anachronism doctrinal, ritual, and architectural.
3. Comb., as † bevy-grease, the fat of a roe-deer.
1610. Gwillim, Heraldry, III. xiv. (1660), 166. The fat of a Roe is termed Bevy Greace.
1616. Bullokar, Beuiegreace, the fat of a row Deere.
