bevy
/ˈbɛvi/
bevy noun: a group of animals, especially quail, roe deer or other game. Also the alternative form of bevvy.
Noun
bevy (plural bevies)
- A group of animals, especially quail, roe deer or other game.
- The pond was another favourite place to visit. Moorhens strutted from the neighbouring bushes, and a bevy of Muscovy ducks, a study in black, white and red, waddled from the farmyard hard by to enjoy a refreshing splash.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 217
- But a bevy of hinds seem to try to shelter a distressed one, and by running on with her in a bunch to puzzle the hounds1906 March, “Hind-hunting”, in Baily's Magazine of Sports & Pastimes, volume 85, page 207
- A group, especially a large group, and especially a group of attractive girls or women.
- In the midſt of all this buſtle, I was ſtruck with the appearance of a large bevy of beauties and women of the firſt fashion, who with all the perfect confidence of good breeding, inſhrined themſelves in the ſeveral temples dedicated to the Cyprian Venus[.]1755, Adam Fitz-Adam, The World, number CXXI, London, page 789
- The same messenger who summoned the whole bevy of renegades, Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland, and Mulgrave, could just as easily have summoned Clarendon.1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume II, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 365
Also used as
bevy is also the alternative form of bevvy.
Examples of bevy in a sentence
- A bevy of birds were flushed by horsemen.1892, The Fanciers' Journal, volume 8, page 101:
- One of the lords of Argouges, when out hunting one day, met a bevy of twenty ladies of rare beauty, all mounted on palfreys white as the driven snow.1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 485:
- Chinese yo-yos, candy, handcuffs—just a bevy of stuff—and I'd usually convince him to give me some of it.2011, Ryan Zimmerman, I was a Bad Kid - The True Tales of a Deceptive Child, →ISBN, page 3:
Forms of bevy
| plural | bevies |
|---|
Origin of bevy
From Middle English bevey, of uncertain origin, possibly Anglo-Norman.
See bevvy.
Words that rhyme with bevy
Questions about bevy
- What does bevy mean?
- Bevy means a group of animals, especially quail, roe deer or other game.
- How do you use bevy in a sentence?
- A bevy of birds were flushed by horsemen.
- What part of speech is bevy?
- Bevy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce bevy?
- Bevy is pronounced /ˈbɛvi/.
- What is the plural of bevy?
- The plural of bevy is bevies.
Words near bevy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bevy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-bevy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bevy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bevy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.