Now rare or arch. Also 7 tantivie, -vey, -ve, 8 -vee, -vi, tantwivy. [Origin obscure: ? echoic, representing the sound of a horse’s feet.]
† A. adv. At full gallop; swiftly; headlong.
1641. Brome, Joviall Crew, IV. i. Up at five a’ Clock in the morning … And Tantivy all the country over, where Hunting, Hawking, or any Sport is to be made.
1648. Fraction in the Assembly, 7. Till her Tongue travel’d tantivie, and more then a Canterbury pace.
1690. Pagan Prince, xxi. 58 (heading), How he rode Tantivy to Papimania.
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-Cr., II. A ij b. (Like so many Asses) to let Hypocrisy bestride them,… and ride them—Tantivee.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v., Away they went tantwivy, away they went full speed.
1823. Scott, Peveril, xxxiii. There are those amongst us who ride tantivy to Rome, and have already made out half the journey.
B. sb. 1. (from the adverb.) A rapid gallop; a ride at this pace. Also transf. and fig.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Reply Parlt.-Officer, Wks. (1687), 93. I expected to hear from you in the Language of … the Prodigal Son, and not in such a Tantivy of Language.
1680. V. Alsop, Mischief Imposit., xi. 94. Jogging on their own pace, neither the high-trot nor the Tantivey.
1721. Cibber, Refusal, IV. Ah! poor Soul! piteous bad! All upon the Tantivy again!
1854. Thoreau, Walden, iv. 125. The Tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart my view … gives a voice to the air.
2. A nickname given to the post-Restoration High-Churchmen and Tories, esp. in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.
This arose 1680–81, when a caricature was published in which a number of High Church clergymen were represented as mounted upon the Church of England and ‘riding tantivy’ to Rome, behind the Duke of York.
Cf. 1681. Trial of S. Colledge, 25. Dugdale. And there is one Picture that I have not shewed yet…. Jefferies. There are some Churchmen; what are they a doing? Dugdale. They are a parcel of Tantivy men riding to Rome, and here’s the Duke of York, half Man, half Devil, trumpeting before them. Ibid., 59. Mr. Charlett. It was the pictures of the Tantivies and the Towzer [Roger L’Estrange], and he told me they were made by Colledge, he was a very ingenious man.
a. 1734. North, Exam., I. ii. § 130. About Half a Dozen of the Tantivies were mounted upon the Church of England, booted and spurred, riding it, like an old Hack, Tantivy to Rome.
1680–81. G. Hickes, Spirit of Popery, 23. The Clergy … called them Priests, and Bishops, which in these days would pass for Episcopal tantivies.
1681. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 124. The former are called by the latter, tories, tantivies, Yorkists, high flown church men, &c.
1706. Phillips (ed. 6), Tantivy.… Also a Nick-name given by the Dissenters to a Worldly-minded Church-man, that bestirs himself for Preferment.
1707. Hearne, Collect., 24 Feb. (O. H. S.), I. 336. Hei! day! What in the High-Rope! a high-Flyer and a Tantivi!
1730. Swift, Vind. Ld. Carteret, 27. Favouring none but High-Church, High-flyers,… Tip-top-gallon-men, Jacobites, Tantivyes, Anti-Hanoverians [etc.].
1841. Macaulay, Ess., Comic Dramatists (1887), 613. Collier … was a Tory of the highest sort, such as in the cant of his age was called a Tantivy. Ibid. (1849), Hist. Eng., ii. I. 256.
3. erron. applied to a blast or flourish on a horn.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v., Tantwivy was the sound of the hunting horn in full cry, or that of a post horn.
1834. Medwin, Angler in Wales, II. 97. A schoolboy put an end to all the Childe Harolding by a tantivy on a bugle.
C. adj. ? orig., in tantivy men and the like, attrib. use of B. 1; afterwards often of B. 2.
1681. T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 7 (1713), I. 42. In favour of the Tory and Tantivy Party.
1682. Mrs. Behn, City Heiress, 30. Perverted with Ill Customs, Tantivie-Opinions, and Court-Notions.
1682. New News fr. Bedlam, 26. Whereas you say it was a high Presbyterian Trot, I rather believe it was a Tantivy Gallop.
1691. Andros Tracts, II. 246. Had King Rehoboam kept his Tantivy Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non Resistance to himself,… the poor People had been his Servants for ever.
1715. State Quacks, 21. High Tantivee Scaramouches make Choice of a vast Heap of Epithets as unintelligible … as impertinent.
1826. Scott, Woodst., xx. Master Wildrake is one of the old school—one of the tantivy boys.
1884. Q. Rev., July, 32. Birmingham itself … to become as great a stronghold of ‘tantivy’ politics as it was in the days when it rabbled Priestley.
D. int. An imitation of the sound of galloping or scudding feet; later (erron.) of the sound of a horn.
1697. Vanbrugh, Æsop, II. i. Æsop … But (like some of our friends) they found ’Twas safer much to scour. Rog. Tantive! Tantive! Tantive!
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), II. 188. Tantivee, tivee, tivee, tivee, High and Low. Hark, hark how the merry merry Horn does blow.
1821. Sporting Mag., VIII. 156. Tantivy! tantivy! the hunting-horn blew.
