Dictionary

spivvery en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈspɪvəɹi/

Etymology

From spiv + -ery.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Behaviour characteristic of a spiv; crookery, petty crime.
   • Rome is also a city of spivvery, a city which had a black market before black markets were invented. 1956, Kenneth Wolstenholme, Sports Special, page 39:
   • With fascism defeated and Great Britain back on form, it is an optimistic start, but in spite of Mr Attlee’s government promising all the best things for Britain, the country has descended into spivvery, which forces the good men of 1087 [a motor gun boat; see The Ship That Died of Shame] into trafficking drugs and becoming criminals. 2013, Edward Page, A 1950s Childhood, Amberley, →ISBN, page 70:
   • The Government decided the issues in accordance with the best principles, he said: "The weak first; and the strong next." Mr. Churchill preferred a free-for-all, but what was Toryism except organised Spivvery? 1948 July 4, “Mr Bevan's bitter attack on Tories”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • This is spivvery for which you and I pay billions extra just to get minimal services—it can also lead to a financial fragility at the heart of the firms on which Britain now relies. 2018 April 23, Aditya Chakrabortty, “Some call it outsourcing. I call it spivvery”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • Slater Walker became synonymous, after the 1973 crash, with City spivvery and the kind of risk-taking excess from which the next generation failed to learn. 2015 November 28, Martin Vander Weyer, “Never too late to investigate HBOS”, in The Spectator, page 36:

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