brivet
English
Alternative forms
* brivit
Verb
(
brivett)
(intransitive, British, West Midlands) To wander an area, or look through items, without specific purpose or to satisfy idle curiosity, especially in a furtive and illicit manner.
- Once Melanie had left the house, I entered her bedroom and began to brivet around.
* 1920 , Eric Leadbitter, Shepherd's warning , page 148
- And all the time she'd be brivetting about on the sly with any good-for-nothing young rascals she could get hold on.
Usage notes
* Particularly prevalent in the regional dialect of the West Midlands of England, and the Welsh border area.
* Most often applied to a child's behaviour or that of pets and other animals.
* Also used in the Gloucestershire/Wiltshire border area in the context of jumble sales, Women's Institutes or Church 'sales of work'
References
* Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary: Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, Or Known to Have Been in Use During the Last Two Hundred Years; Founded on the Publications of the English Dialect Society and on a Large Amount of Material Never Before Printed , Oxford University Press (1970), page 398:
*: Brivet , a word often applied to children when they wander about aimlessly and turn over things.
* Notes and Queries , Oxford University Press (1899), page 329:
*: “Briveting.”—A friend of mine, a native of Oxford, in the course of conversation remarked, in reference to something for which he had been searching, that he had been “briveting ” about London. Never having heard of the term before, and not
* Collections historical & archaeological relating to Montgomeryshire , , the Powys-land Club (1874), page 122:
*: Brivit , to ferret after or search for a thing. A person told me that a certain discovery was made whilst a drawer was being brivited; ie, whilst its contents were being thoroughly inspected.
* Horace Harman, Buckinghamshire dialect , S. R. Publishers (1970), ISBN 9780854095810, page 141:
*: BRIVIT — To fidget. Records of Bucks (VII, 288) gives the meaning as "to rummage," quoting its use at Winslow.
* Bye-gones, relating to Wales and the Border Counties , [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qNgvAAAAMAAJ] (1907), page 54:
*: A Shrewsbury clergyman lately heard the following in his parish: — 'Somebody's been "briviting " in my drawers. I do not know where anything is.'
