levy

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛ.vi/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛvi

From Anglo-Norman leve, from Old French levee, from lever (“to raise”).

levy (third-person singular simple present levies, present participle levying, simple past and past participle levied)

1. To impose (a tax or fine) to collect monies due, or to confiscate property.

   to levy a tax

   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎:

     In August, the company also announced that it would begin to levy fines on other vendors on its platform who over-package their products.

2. To raise or collect by assessment; to exact by authority.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     If they do this […] my ransom, then, / Will soon be levied.

3. To draft someone into military service.
4. To raise; to collect; said of troops, to form into an army by enrollment, conscription. etc.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, James Nichols, editor, The Church History of Britain, […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), new edition, London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837, OCLC 913056315:

     Augustine […] inflamed Ethelbert, king of Kent, to levy his power, and to war against them.

5. To wage war.
6. To raise, as a siege.
   • 1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “(please specify the book number)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], OCLC 12997447:

     Albeit hee saw that the siege was levied

7. (law) To erect, build, or set up; to make or construct; to raise or cast up.
   • 1619, Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice:

     The new levying or inhancing of Weares Mills

levy (plural levies)

1. The act of levying.
   • 1835-1847, Connop Thirlwall, The History of Greece

     A levy of all the men left under sixty.

2. The tax, property or people so levied.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 12, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323:

     The Irish levies.

Contraction of elevenpence.

levy (plural levies)

1. (US, obsolete, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia) The Spanish real of one eighth of a dollar, valued at elevenpence when the dollar was rated at seven shillings and sixpence.

• levee
• Levi

• Elvy, vley

lev- +‎ -y; from the same root as leveä (“wide”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈleʋy/, [ˈle̞ʋy]
• Rhymes: -eʋy
• Syllabification^(key): le‧vy

levy

1. plate (thin, flat object of uniform thickness)
2. board (flat construction material supplied in sheets, such as chipboard, or a sheet of such material)
3. slab (thick, flat piece of material)
4. (computing, electronics) disk (device for storing data)
5. (music) recording, disc (piece of music stored on a disc, or a disc on which music is saved)
6. Short for keittolevy (“hotplate”).

• (plate): laatta
• (musical recording): levytys (music); savikiekko, vinyyli, äänilevy (physical disc)

• (recording): älppäri, pitkäsoittolevy, single

• levyttää
• levytys

• Häkkinen, Kaisa (2004) Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja [Modern Finnish Etymological Dictionary] (in Finnish), Juva: WSOY, →ISBN

• elvy