▪ I. chive, n.1
(tʃaɪv)
Also cive (saɪv). Forms: 5 cyves, -ys, 5–7 cyve, 6 chyve, 6, 8 sive, (9 shive), 6– chive, cive.
[In form cive a. F. cive = Pr. ceba:—L. cēpa, cæpa onion. The form chive prob. represents a North Fr. chive. (Cf. rive:—ripa; cire:—cera.) It is probable that sense 2 is orig. the same word, though it never appears as cive, and early writers who regularly used cive for the plant, employed chive in sense 2.
In OE. cipe, a. L. cēpa, still retained the sense ‘onion’ (also that of ‘shalot’ or ‘scallion’); but in Romanic the name was extended and transferred to smaller species of Allium. In French, cive included (or perhaps still includes) ‘several small species or varieties’, besides A. Schœnoprasum, to which the dim. civette (in Cat. cebeta) applies more exclusively. In Eng. cive or chive appears always to have meant this, civet being merely a rare, and now obsolete synonym. In French it is also called ciboulette, dim. of ciboule chibol. Other OF. derivative forms were civol, civon, civot. The form chive is not recorded by Littré, but its existence in ONFr. may be inferred from the derivatives chivon, chivot (Godefroy). In Eng. cive and chive both occur from early times; but the former is the leading form, down to the present century. The phonetic corruption siethe used by Tusser, and interesting as exemplifying the interchange of v and ð, is still in familiar use in the south of Scotland. The modern prevalence of chive in the leading form is, perhaps, due to association with chive n.2, arising from the fact that it is for its slender leaves that the chive is cultivated. Chived garlic in 3 clearly points to this.]
1. The smallest cultivated species of Allium (A. Schœnoprasum), which grows in tufts, with rush-like hollow leaves and small clustered bulbs. The leaves are cut for use in soups and stews. wild chive: a name sometimes applied to the Wild Garlic or Ramsons (A. ursinum).
| a 1400 Ep. Swete Susane 105 (Vernon MS.) Þe chyue [MS. Phillips c 1410 cheruyle] and þe chollet, þe chibolle, þe cheue. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 78 Cyuys, herbe. 1530 Palsgr. 205/1 Chyve an herbe, ciue. 1548 Turner Names of Herbes, Gethium is called in englishe a Syue, a chiue, or a ciuet. 1562 ― Herbal ii. 9 Chyue..is not of y⊇ kynde of lekes, but of y⊇ kynde of an vnion. 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 94 Seedes and herbes for the Kitchen: Siethes. 1578 Lyte Dodoens 642 Cyves or Rushe Onyons..have litle smal, holowe, and slender piped blades, lyke to smal Rushes. 1580 Baret Alv. C. 557 Ciues, cæpulæ. 1597 Gerard Herbal i. viii. 11 The root is thicke and clouedlike..Ciues. 1611 Cotgr., Escurs. the little sallade hearbe called, Ciues, or Chiues. 1708 Motteux Rabelais iv. lx. (1737) 245 Sives, Rampions, Jew's Ears. 1784 Twamley Dairying 90 Pastures much addicted to wild garlick, or cow-garlick, ramsons or wild chives. 1807 Crabbe Par. Reg. i. 139 Here grow the humble cives. 1832 Veg. Subst. Food 292 The chive..is a hardy perennial plant. 1849 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club II. vii. 356 He had often gathered shives for the pot there. 1860 Delamer Kitch. Gard. 46 Chives or Cives..more like a cluster of miniature leeks than a tuft of onions. |
2. A small bulb or bulbil; esp. one of the daughter bulbs or ‘cloves’ of a bulb of garlic.
(By Herrick possibly misapplied to the young leaves by confusion with chive n.2)
| 1551 Turner Herbal i. (1568) K iv b, I saw the see gyrdell [Laminaria digitata]..the rootes was lyke onto garleke, many chyues makyng one great hede. 1648 Herrick Hesper., Hymne to Lares, To worship ye, the Lares, With crowns of greenest parsley, And Garlick chives not scarcely [Also To Larr]. 1678 Phillips, Chives are the smaller parts of some bulbous Roots, as of Daffadil, Garlick, etc. by which they are propagated. 1692 in Coles s.v. 1741 Compl. Fam.-Piece i. i. 36 Out of a Bulbe or Root of Garlick, chuse a Chive of a convenient Bigness. |
3. attrib., as chive- (or chived) garlic = sense 1; chive-cheese, cheese flavoured with chives.
| 1776 Withering Bot. Arrangem. (1796) III. 335 Leaves cylindrical, awl-threadshaped, as long as the stalk..Chived Garlic. 1848 C. A. Johns Week at Lizard 304 Chive Garlic. 1883 Daily News 3 Oct. 2/2 An English maker seized on the happy idea of making chive cheese. |
▪ II. † chive, n.2 Bot. Obs.
Forms: 6 chyve, 6–8 chieve, 7 shive, 6– chive. (Mostly in pl.)
[Occurs first in the expression ‘chives of saffron’, which in Berthelet's reprint (1535) of Trevisa's transl. of Bartholomæus De Proprietatibus Rerum, takes the place of chithe, chire in the 15th c. MSS., chire in the ed. of Wynkyn de Worde (1495). As chithe is app. the original word, chive appears to be an altered form, perhaps partly phonetic (cf. the form siethe in Tusser, cīthe in modern Scotch for cive = chive n.1), partly influenced by confusion with chive n.1, this being an Allium of which only the chithes or slender thread-like leaves are used. The passage in De Prop. Rerum is a quotation from Pliny H.N. xxi. 5. §11, ‘stantibus in medio crocis’, where ‘crocis’ has not the sense of ‘saffron’, but that of ‘internal organs of other flowers analogous to saffron’; but whether the Eng. translator so understood it in rendering it ‘chiues of saffron’ is doubtful. In any case the sense of chive as thread-like organ in flowers is clear.]
1. gen. A general name for ‘threads’ or filamentous organs in flowers, i.e. stamens and pistils.
| 1535 Berthelet ‘corrected’ ed. of Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. xci, The floure [Lilye] hath within as it were smalle thredes that conteyne the sede. In the myddel standethe chyues of saffron [stantibus in medio crocis]. 1597 Gerard Herbal i. xxxiii. 45 Faire star-like flowers..with certaine chiues or threds in them. 1688 R. Holme ii. vi. 115 Chives are thick, round and sharp pointed horns that stand in the middle of flowers, which in some are more slenderer than in others. Chives, tipt with pendents, is when the horn hath a seed hanging and shaking at the point of it. Chives are small pointels. |
† 2. spec. The thread-like style and stigma of a flower, esp. the stigma of the saffron crocus. Obs.
| 1530 Palsgr., Chyue, of safron or suche lyke. 1562 Leigh Armorie (1597) 80 b, By the eating of one chieue of safron. 1587 Harrison England iii. viii. (1877) ii. 52 In everie [crocus] floure we find commonlie three chives, & three yellowes, & double the number of leaves. 1622 Peacham Compl. Gentl. i. xxii. (1634) 69 Five or sixe shives of saffron. 1649 W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653) 249 In the middle of it comes up two or three chives which grow upright together..which chives, that is the very Saffron & no maore..you may take betwixt your fingers. 1678 Phil. Trans. XII. 947 The best Saffron is that which consists of the thickest and shortest chives. 1712 tr. Pomet's Hist. Drugs I. 112 Saffron is the Chive, or Thread of a Flower. 1728 Douglas, Saffron in Phil. Trans. XXXV. 569 They fall to picking out the Filamenti Styli, or Chives, and with them, a pretty long Portion of the Stylus itself, or string to which they are joined. |
b. wrongly applied to the ovary.
| 1727 Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Alaturnus, At the Bottom of the Flower grows the Chive, which turns to a Fruit or Berry fill'd with three Seeds. |
3. The filament or thread of the stamen, or the stamen as a whole. arch. or Obs.
| 1664 Power Exp. Philos. i. 49 Out of the middle of the Flower groweth a long style or poyntel, beset round about with small chives, which are tipped with pendents. 1672 Grew Anat. Plants i. v. §13 Made up of two general parts, Chives and Semets, one upon each Chive. 1754 Martyn in Phil. Trans. XLVIII. 614 It has four conspicuous chives, which sustain yellow summits, in which is great plenty of farina. 1750 G. Hughes Barbados App. 316 Chives are those slender Bodies which surround the Ovarium in the Centre of Flowers, and support the Summits. 1787 Withering Bot. Arrangem. passim. 1807 J. E. Smith Phys. Bot. 270 The Stamens, formerly called Chives. |
b. Misapplied by Ray, and some after him, to the anther (also apex, pendant, semet, or summit).
| 1691 Ray Creation i. (1704) 124 The prolific seed contained in the chives or apices of the Stamina. 1707 Phillips, Chives, the fine Threads in Flowers, or, according to some, the small Knobs that grow on the top of those Threads. 1721 Bradley Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat. 28 Little Threads, to which the Botanists have given the name of Stamina..are terminated at their tops by small Caps or Purses call'd Apices or Chives. 1732 Flower Gard. Displ., Apices, Chives, the small knobs that grow on the fine Threads or Stamina. |
4. A slender blade (of grass); a mote, piece of chaff, or the like; = chithe 1.
| 1610 P. Barrough Meth. Physick i. xxxviii. (1639) 60 If any chive, chip or dust skip into the eye. 1616 Surfl. Countr. Farme 645 A conie..will gather vp the smallest chiue of grasse that may be. 1857 Wright Prov. Dict., Chives, chits of grass. Leic. |
5. One of the lamellæ or the gills forming the hymenium of an agaric. (Perhaps another word.)
| 1721 Bradley Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat. 19 Champignion..the Chives within side of the Cap have been by some taken for the Seed; but I do not find, with the greatest Care, they can ever be made to Germinate. 1744 Pickering, Mushrooms, in Phil. Trans. XLIII. 96 The Lamellæ or Chives on the concave side of the Umbella. Ibid. 97 A..Proof, that each distinct Chive is a Siliqua or seed-vessel. |