levee

• levée (rare)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛvi/, /ˈlɛv.eɪ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -ɛvi, -ɛveɪ
• Homophone: levy (some pronunciations only)
• (US) enPR: lev'i, IPA^(key): /ˈlɛvi/, /ləˈvi/, /ləˈveɪ/
• Rhymes: -ɛvi
• Homophones: levy, Levy

From French levée, from lever (“to raise, rise”).

levee (plural levees)

1. An elevated ridge of deposited sediment on the banks of a river, formed by the river's overflow at times of high discharge.
2. An embankment to prevent inundation; as, the levees along the Mississippi.
3. (US) The steep bank of a river.
   • 1826, William Christy, A Digest of Martin's Reports:

     The purchaser of a riparious estate under the words "front to the levee," does not acquire the alluvion or batture, when there is land susceptible of separate ownership beyond the levee.

4. (US) The border of an irrigated field.
5. (US) A pier or other landing place on a river.

• (embankment): dike, floodwall

levee (third-person singular simple present levees, present participle leveeing, simple past and past participle leveed)

1. (US, transitive) To keep within a channel by means of levees.

   to levee a river

From French levé variant of the noun lever (“the act of getting up in the morning”).

levee (plural levees)

1. (obsolete) The act of rising; getting up, especially in the morning after rest.
   • c. 1763, Thomas Gray, letter to Mr. Nichols

     And look before you were up in the morning, though you were a punctual courtier at the sun's levee

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 414:

     The sturdy hind now attends the levee of his fellow-labourer the ox […]

2. A reception of visitors held after getting up.
3. A formal reception, especially one given by royalty or other leaders.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 179:

     I must take my leave, for the Cardinal holds a levee to-day, and let those fail in attendance who want nothing.

   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety‎^[1], published 1993, →ISBN, page 195:

     At the King's levee on the morning of the 13th, Philippe was first ignored; then asked by His Majesty (rudely) what he wanted; then told, ‘Get back where you came from.’

levee (third-person singular simple present levees, present participle leveeing, simple past and past participle leveed)

1. (transitive) To attend the levee or levees of.
   • 1725–1728, [Edward Young], “(please specify the page)”, in Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. In Seven Characteristical Satires, 4th edition, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson […], published 1741, →OCLC:

     He levees all the great.

• eleve, leeve

levee

1. feminine singular of the past participle of lever