a. [Earlier and more normal form of LEAFY.]
1. Having leaves; covered with leaves or foliage. Obs. exc. poet.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., IV. 486. With leuy bowis puld ek let hem be By nyght.
c. 1586. C’tess Pembroke, Ps. XCVI. vi. Leavy infants of the wood.
1608. Shaks., Per., V. i. 51. The leauie shelter that abutts against the Islands side.
1634. Milton, Comus, 278. Dim darknes, and this leavy Labyrinth.
1651–3. Jer. Taylor, Serm. for Year, I. xxi. 266. So doth the humble vine creep at the foot of an oak … and [they] are the most remarkable of friends … of all the leavie nation.
1745. trans. Columella’s Husb., IX. ix. A green leavy little tree.
1832. Tennyson, Margaret, v. And faint, rainy lights are seen, Moving in the leavy beech. Ibid. (1833), Poems, 42. I heard … The nightingale in leavy woods Call to its mate.
† b. Of a season: Abounding in foliage. Obs.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, II. iii. 75. The fraud of men were euer so, Since summer first was leauy.
c. Consisting of or made of leaves (either natural or ornamental).
1610. G. Fletcher, Christ’s Vict., I. xix. He fled thy sight,… And for his shield a leavie armour weav’d.
1611. Cotgr., Fueillure...; also, leafe-worke, or a leauie flourishing.
† 2. Of a gate: Having leaves. Obs.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, VI. 86. Take the key, vnlocke the leauie gates.
Hence † Leaviness, leafiness.
1611. Cotgr., Fueillure, Leauinesse.
1687. Rycaut, Contn. Knolles’ Hist. Turks, II. 252. The shady leaviness of two tall elms.
