Gyve
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A shackle or fetter, especially for the leg. literary
"[…] I would have thee gone: And yet no further than a wanton’s bird; Who lets it hop a little from her hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silk thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty."
- 1 To shackle, fetter, chain.
"Not gyved with connubial relations, I entered upon my migration entirely isolated, with the exception of a canine quadruped whose mordacious, latrant, lusorious, and venatic qualities, are without parity."
Example
More examples"[…] I would have thee gone: And yet no further than a wanton’s bird; Who lets it hop a little from her hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silk thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty."
Etymology
From Middle English *give, *gyve (found only in plural gives, gyves (“shackles; fetters”)). Of uncertain origin, possibly from low dialect taking from Celtic; compare Welsh gefyn (“fetter, shackle”), Irish geibbionn (“fetters”), geimheal (“fetter, chain, shackle”); these are from Proto-Celtic *gem- (“shackle, chain”), from Proto-Indo-European *gem- (“to squeeze, grab, press”), see also Proto-Slavic *žęti, Ancient Greek γέντο (génto). The modern pronunciation with /dʒ/ is due to the spelling. The verb is from Middle English given, gyven (“to shackle”), from the noun.
Related phrases
More for "gyve"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.