covey

American  

[kuhv-ee] / ˈkʌv i /

noun

coveys plural

1. a brood or small flock of partridges or similar birds.

2. a group, set, or company.

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covey British  

/ ˈkʌvɪ /

noun

1. a small flock of grouse or partridge

2. a small group, as of people

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• coveys
  plural

Etymology

Origin of covey

First recorded in 1400–50; Middle English, variant of covee, from Anglo-French, Old French, noun use of feminine of past participle of cover “to hatch,” from Latin cubāre “to lie down”; cf. couvade, concubine

Explanation

A covey is a social group of birds. You can also use it for a group of people, like the covey of kids that hangs out on the playground after school. The roots of covey go back to the Latin cubare, "incubate or hatch." The word was originally used for a brood of newly-hatched partridges or other similar birds. Today it can refer to one family group, like a mother pigeon and her chicks, or a flock that hangs out together. Feel free to describe other groups using this word, like the covey of tourists walking slowly down the sidewalk with their map as the locals dodge past them.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

covey coveys

One surprise in his black art exhibition was the inclusion of “Virginian Partridge,” a dramatic 1830 John James Audubon graphic showing a fierce red hawk going after a covey of fluttering quail.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2020

From businesses, governments and organisations, a scripted response will fail to resonate as it will not covey empathy and compassion.

From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2018

Mr. Barrett was, by example, a tutor to a covey of ambitious interns and journalism students, despite a hair-trigger temper.

From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2017

Out flew Secret Service agents and a covey of aides, all unavoidably inflated with the adrenaline-rush self-importance of big-time campaigning, and then from behind the tinted glass came Hillary Clinton.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 17, 2016

She cut Hester Sinclair from the covey: “How’s Bill?”

From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee

The book resonates with a rustic knowingness that coveys the intricacies and suspicions of tightly bound lives.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2024

In a 1916 interview with the Washington Evening Star, Bailey described the coveys of quail that roamed the fringes of Washington, “fed by the police patrolling the outskirts of the city.”

From Washington Post ● May 25, 2022

A Park Service employee, for example, does not have the right to tweet or blog things related to their official duties in a manner that coveys official status.

From New York Times ● Jan. 25, 2017

French has no word that combines the sense of “broken” and “mad” that cracked coveys in English, so De Freyman makes it “cinglé”, which comes back from Schwartz as “crazy”.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 4, 2016

For a week our host had noted where the coveys were gathering.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck