gyve

Etymology

From Middle English *give, *gyve (found only in plural gives, gyves (“shackles; fetters”)). Of uncertain origin. Compare Welsh gefyn (“fetter, shackle”), Irish geibbionn (“fetters”), geimheal (“fetter, chain, shackle”). The modern pronunciation with /dʒ/ is due to the spelling. The verb is from Middle English given, gyven (“to shackle”), from the noun.

noun

1. (literary) A shackle or fetter, especially for the leg.
   With head and heart and hand I’ll strive To break the rod, and rend the gyve,— The spoiler of his prey deprive, 1845, William Lloyd Garrison, “The Triumph of Freedom”, in The Liberty Bell, Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, page 192
   Our gyves were removed and our possessions returned to us, except for my Banker’s Special. 1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, chapter 15, in Don’t Point That Thing at Me, New York: The Overlook Press, published 2004, page 126

verb

1. To shackle, fetter, chain.
   Not gyved with connubial relations, I entered upon my migration entirely isolated, with the exception of a canine quadruped whose mordacious, latrant, lusorious, and venatic qualities, are without parity. 1856, Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour, Letters to Squire Pedant, in the East, page 13
   "Say, rather, to melt the iron links which gyve soul to body," said Clifton ... 1864, “A Fast-Day at Foxden”, in Atlantic Monthly Journal, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2006
   Gyved to a squeaky swivel seat in my office, … 2008, LD Brodsky, “A Devotee of the Southern Way of Making Love”, in Sheri L. Vadermolen, editor, The Complete Poems of Louis Daniel Brodsky: Volume Four, 1981-1985, Time Being Books, page 419