Harvey
WordNet
noun
(1) English physician and scientist who described the circulation of the blood; he later proposed that all animals originate from an ovum produced by the female of the species (1578-1657)
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From given name , name of a saint, from + .
- In Ireland used as a anglicisation of and .
Proper noun
- , in modern use often transferred back from the surname.
Quotations
- 1847 William Chambers, Robert Chambers, Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, W. Orr July-December 1847, page 61 ( "The Aristocracy of Names"):
- There is one of the novels of Miss Edgeworth - we forget which - in which a gentleman of the name of Harvey figures as a hero. Harvey! Only fancy John, Peter, or William Harvey as the hero of a novel! But Miss Edgeworth was too well acquaintanced with the philosophy of names to commit such a blunder: she made the individual Clarence Harvey, and the name has never to this day been objected to even among the female teens.
- 1953 Gladys Bronwyn Stern, A Name to Conjure With, Macmillan 1953, page 15:
- No less than eight times had I gone to see "Harvey" while Sid Field was alive. And the play in which he had found the perfect friend in a man-sized white rabbit was so lodged in my system that the six letters spelling Harvey had power to rouse me as "Crispin" could rouse an old soldier who had fought at Agincourt.