Covey vs Explain - What's the difference?
covey | explain |
A group of 8-12 (or more) quail. See gaggle, host, flock.
A brood of partridges, grouse, etc.
A party or group (of persons or things).
* 1906 , O. Henry,
* 1982 , (Lawrence Durrell), Constance'', Faber & Faber 2004 (''Avignon Quintet ), p. 736
To brood; to incubate.
* Holland
* 1869 , Florida. Commissioner of Lands and Immigration, Florida: Its Climate, Soil, and Productions (page 108)
(British, slang, dated) A man.
* 1846 , Justin Jones, The prince and the queen; or, Scenes in high life
* 1850 , Waldo Howard, The mistake of a life-time, or, The robber of the Rhine (page 140)
* 1851 , William Thomas Moncrieff, Selections from the dramatic works of William T. Moncrieff
To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.
*
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03
, author=, volume=100, issue=2, page=106
, magazine=(American Scientist)
, title= To give a valid excuse for some past behavior.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= (obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.
(obsolete) To unfold or make visible.
* (John Evelyn) (1620-1706)
As verbs the difference between covey and explain
is that covey is to brood; to incubate while explain is to make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.As a noun covey
is a group of 8-12 (or more) quail see gaggle, host, flock or covey can be (british|slang|dated) a man.covey
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) .Noun
(wikipedia covey) (en noun)- The store is on a corner about which coveys of ragged-plumed, hilarious children play and become candidates for the cough drops and soothing syrups that wait for them inside.
- A covey of grey soldiers clanked down the platform at the double with their equipment and embarked, but in absolute silence, which seemed to them very singular.
Verb
(en verb)- [Tortoises] covey a whole year before they hatch.
- There is a duck called the raft duck, because it is so numerous, coveying together in "whole rafts."
References
* 1996, T.F. Hoad, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Etymology , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0192830988Etymology 2
Noun
(en noun)- 'Pooh!' said he, 'you are as easily wounded as an unfledged dove — don't mind what an old covey like me says — I understand it all.'
- There vas an old covey as lived in Wapping, at the time I'm telling you of, who vas connected vith us by ties of common interest.
- I don't know what would become of these here young chaps, if it wasn't for such careful old coveys as we are—
Synonyms
* bloke (UK), chap (UK), chappie (UK), cove (UK), guyAnagrams
* English heteronymsexplain
English
(Explanation)Verb
(en verb)- The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits. He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. Nobody would miss them, he explained .
Pixels or Perish, passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}
Fantasy of navigation, passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}
- The horse-chestnut isready to explain its leaf.