gyve

• give

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”). The modern pronunciation with /dʒ/ is due to the spelling.[1]

The verb is from Middle English given, gyven (“to shackle”), from the noun.

• IPA^(key): /d͡ʒaɪv/, /ɡaɪv/
• Rhymes: -aɪv
• Homophone: jive

gyve (plural gyves)

1. (literary) A shackle or fetter, especially for the leg.
   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     […] 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.

   • 1845, William Lloyd Garrison, “The Triumph of Freedom”, in The Liberty Bell‎, Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, page 192:

     With head and heart and hand I’ll strive
     To break the rod, and rend the gyve,—
     The spoiler of his prey deprive,—

   • 1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, chapter 15, in Don’t Point That Thing at Me‎, New York: The Overlook Press, published 2004, page 126:

     Our gyves were removed and our possessions returned to us, except for my Banker’s Special.

gyve (third-person singular simple present gyves, present participle gyving, simple past and past participle gyved)

1. To shackle, fetter, chain.
   • 1856, Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour, Letters to Squire Pedant, in the East, page 13:

     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.

   • 1864, “A Fast-Day at Foxden”, in Atlantic Monthly Journal‎, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2006:

     "Say, rather, to melt the iron links which gyve soul to body," said Clifton ...

   • 2008, LD Brodsky, “A Devotee of the Southern Way of Making Love”, in Sheri L. Vadermolen, editor, The Complete Poems of Louis Daniel Brodsky: Volume Four, 1981-1985‎, Time Being Books, →ISBN, page 419:

     Gyved to a squeaky swivel seat in my office, …

• down-gyved

gyve (present tense gyv, past tense gauv, supine gove, past participle goven, present participle gyvande, imperative gyv)

1. Alternative form of gyva