Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your vocabulary. This week's word:
CHIVVY
To tease or annoy someone with persistent petty attacks is to chivvy (pronounced CHIV-ee, also spelled chivy). Merriam-Webster adds that it can also mean to obtain something by a small maneuver, as "to chivvy an olive out of a bottle."
The early meaning is to harass or chase, and the verb is from hunting. Chivvy is also a noun for "hunt" in British English. It derives from the ballad "Chevy Chase," about the battle between the English and the Scots at Otterburn in 1388: Chevy=hunt + chase=unenclosed land or game preserve.
Examples: From Margot Livesey's "The History of Boys" in Triquarterly, Fall 1996: "His white hair, with no one to chivvy him into haircuts, straggled to his shoulders."
From Elizabeth Porto's "Angel City" in Massachusetts Review, Winter 2000-2001: "She could chivvy open a car door with a coat hanger, could figure the temperature by the chirrups of a cricket."