▪ I. † ˈbever, n.
(ˈbiːvə(r))
Forms: 5–7 beuer, 6 beuoir, boeuer, boyuer, 6–7 boier, 7 beauer, 7–9 beaver, bever.
[a. OF. beivre (also baivre, beivere, boivre) drinking, drink, subst. use of OF. beivre, boivre (now boire) pres. inf.:—L. bibĕre to drink. (In med.L. biber, bibera, biberis.) With sense 3, cf. the parallel OF. form beverie, beverry, in the sense of a lunch or collation in a monastery.]
† 1. Drink, liquor for drinking. Obs.
| 1451 Marg. Paston Lett. 149 (1872) I. 201, I can gett none ell [eels] yett; as for bever ther is promysid me somme. |
† 2. A potation, a drinking; a time for drinking.
| 1499 Promp. Parv. 34 Beuer, drinkinge tyme, biberrium. 1552 Huloet, Beuer, or drinckyng, or potacion. 1580 Baret Alv. B 876 A Boeuer or drinking betweene dinner and supper. 1626 H. Mason Epicure's Fast iii. 25 Their custome of drinking which I call a continuall Bever. |
3. A small repast between meals; a ‘snack,’ nuncheon, or lunch; esp. one in the afternoon between mid-day dinner and supper. Chiefly dial.
| 1500 Ortus Voc. in Promp. Parv. 34 note, Merendula, a beuer after none. 1573 Cooper Thesaurus, Merenda..a collation, a noone meale, a boyuer. c 1590 Marlowe Faust. vi, Thirty meals a-day and ten bevers. 1599 Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 60 As they vse to ring to dinner or beuoir in cloisters. 1602 W. Fulbecke 2nd Pt. Parall. Introd. 3 The booke of Littletons tenures is there breakfast, their dinner, their boier, their supper, and their rere-banquet. 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet xxii. 246 Children of Princes..were to be allowed their Bevers or afternoons Nuncians. 1679 Plot Staffordsh. 286 Sent hungry with a bever to her Father in the field. 1750 W. Ellis Mod. Husb. V. iii. 146 They eat wholly on this [cheese] and bread at one time of the day, which they call their beaver, and this is commonly about four of the clock in the afternoon. 1884 M. Morris in Eng. Illustr. Mag. Nov. 73 [At Eton], Came up from cricket in the summer afternoons for ‘bever.’ |
| fig. a 1640 Jackson Creed xi. xxxv. Wks. XI. 99 Are our daily sermons but as so many bevers of wind whose efficacy vanisheth with the breath that uttereth them. |
▪ II. † ˈbever, v.1 Obs.
[f. prec. n.]
intr. To partake of bever. See prec.
| 1607 Lingua ii. i. in Hazl. Dodsl. IX. 366 Your gallants never sup, breakfast, or bever without me. 1632 Sherwood, To beuer..collationner. 1783 Ainsworth Lat. Dict. (Morell) 1, To beaver, merendam sumere. |
▪ III. † bever, v.2 Obs. exc. dial.
(ˈbɛvə(r))
[Frequentative f. OE. beofian to tremble (see bive): as glimmer f. gleam. Cf. LG. beveren, Du. bibberen to tremble.]
intr. To tremble, shake, quiver. (Still widely spread in the dialects.)
| 1470–85 Malory Arthur i. xv, And they were so couragyous that many knyghtes shoke and beuerd for egrenes. 1808 Jamieson Sc. Dict., Bever, baiver, bevver, to shake, tremble, esp. from age or infirmity. 1864 E. Capern Devon Provinc., Bevver, to shake with the cold. |