percy
/ˈpɜɹsi/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.66 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
An English surname from Old French.
name
A male given name transferred from the surname or from a clipping of Percival, of Middle Ages and later usage.
name
A place name:
name
A place name:
name
A place name:
name
A place name:
name
A place name:
Example Sentences
- "Hot[spur]. My name is Harry Percy. / Pr[ince]. VVhy then I ſee / A very valiant rebel of that name; / I am the Prince of VVales, and thinke not Percy / To ſhare vvith me in glory any more: / Tvvo ſtars keepe not their motion in one ſphere, / Nor can one England brooke a double raigne / Of Harry Percy and the Prince of VVales."
- "Speaking of Sligo, I have written again to ask if I may visit there sometime soon, and talk to the administrator, who it turns out is an old acquaintance, a man called Percival Quinn, I think the only Percy I have heard of in the present era, let alone met. […] [T]here may be other files there that even Percy feels can't be communicated, but I don't know."
- "The military arm is considerably bothered by the problem of what to do with him [the conscientious objector]. It tacitly invites the rank and file to have a lark with him in barracks, in the hope that if he is bullied and told that he will be shot next morning, and mobbed and pilloried and photographed in The Daily Sketch as Percy (all Percies are now—shade of Hotspur!—supposed to be cowards) he will, perhaps, stop giving trouble."
- "He never palliated his villainy, never helped old ladies across the street to show that he was a sweet kid au fond or prated about his Oedipus complex like the Percy boys who portray heavies today."
- "["]I must admit I'm not terribly good at figures." / "Never met an officer as was," said Sam. "Most of the young Percies in our mob had to take their boots off to count up to twenty. But don't worry about that. Aunty'll give you the figures. She's got 'em all in her head, like a bleedin' adding machine. It's her handwriting and spelling that gets everybody down. It's soddin' awful she can't read it herself five minutes after.""
- "Them percies fuck up my reaction She stuck on me she immune"
Etymology
Proper noun senses 1 (surname) and 3 (place names) are derived from Norman Percy (“a baronial surname”), from Percy-en-Auge (“a place in Pays d’Auge, Normandy, France”, literally “Percy in Auge”), from Old French Perci, from Late Latin Persiacum, from Latin Persius (“a Gallo-Roman nomen gentile”), from Etruscan 𐌐𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (persu); further etymology uncertain, possibly from 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (φersu, “mask”). Proper noun sense 2 (given name) is either from the above, or is a clipping of Perc(ival) + -y (suffix forming familiar names). The common noun is derived from the proper noun. Sense 2 (“penis”) is probably from the fact that Percy and penis begin with the same letter.
Origin
- Source language: Old French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpɜɹsi/
- British English: /ˈpɜːsi/
Usage
- Derogatory
- Slang
- Australian usage
- British usage
- Humorous