tourney

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman turnei, from Old French tornei (“tournament”), from tornoier (“to joust, tilt”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtɝni/, /ˈtʊɚni/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtʊə(ɹ)ni/, /ˈtɔː(ɹ)ni/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ni, -ʊə(ɹ)ni, -ɔː(ɹ)ni

Noun

tourney (plural tourneys or tournies)

1. A tournament.
   • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):

     By a knight of ghostes & shadowes,
     I sumon’d am to Tourney.
     ten leagues beyond the wide worlds end
     mee thinke it is noe iourney.

   • 1816, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “(please specify the page)”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: John Murray, , by William Bulmer and Co. , →OCLC:

     And let the recreant traitors seek
     My tourney court.

   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., , →OCLC, page 16:

     We hold a tourney here to-morrow morn,
     And there is scantly time for half the work.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIV, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     Kipper stood blinking, as I had sometimes seen him do at the boxing tourneys in which he indulged when in receipt of a shrewd buffet on some tender spot like the tip of the nose.

Verb

tourney (third-person singular simple present tourneys, present participle tourneying, simple past and past participle tourneyed)

1. (archaic) To take part in a tournament.
   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. XV, Practical — Devotional”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):

     Here indeed, perhaps, by rule of antagonisms, may be the place to mention that, after King Richard’s return, there was a liberty of tourneying given to the fighting men of England […]

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