A SHINDY approaches so nearly in sound to the Gipsy word chingaree, which means precisely the same thing, that the suggestion is at least worth consideration.  And it also greatly resembles chindi, which may be translated as “cutting up,” and also quarrel.  “To cut up shindies” was the first form in which this extraordinary word reached the public.  In the original Gipsy tongue the word to quarrel is chinger-av, meaning also (Pott, Zigeuner, p. 209) to cut, hew, and fight, while to cut is chinav.  “Cutting up” is, if the reader reflects, a very unmeaning word as applied to outrageous or noisy pranks; but in Gipsy, whether English, German, or Oriental, it is perfectly sensible and logical, involving the idea of quarrelling, separating, dividing, cutting, and stabbing.  What, indeed, could be more absurd than the expression “cutting up shines,” unless we attribute to shine its legitimate Gipsy meaning of a piece cut off, and its cognate meaning, a noise?

I can see but little reason for saying that a man cut away or that he shinned it, for run away, unless we have recourse to Gipsy, though I only offer this as a mere suggestion.

“Applico” to shindy we have the word ROW, meaning nearly the same thing and as nearly Gipsy in every respect as can be.  It is in Gipsy at the present day in England, correctly, rov, or roven—­to cry—­but v and w are so frequently transposed that we may consider them as the same letter. Raw or me rauaw, “I howl” or “cry,” is German Gipsy. Rowan is given by Pott as equivalent to the Latin ululatus, which constituted a very respectable row as regards mere noise.  “Rowdy” comes from “row” and both are very good Gipsy in their origin.  In Hindustani Rao mut is “don’t cry!”

CHIVVY is a common English vulgar word, meaning to goad, drive, vex, hunt, or throw as it were here and there.  It is purely Gipsy, and seems to have more than one root. Chiv, chib, or chipe, in Rommany, mean a tongue, inferring scolding, and chiv anything sharp-pointed, as for instance a dagger, or goad or knife.  But the old Gipsy word chiv-av among its numerous meanings has exactly that of casting, throwing, pitching, and driving.  To chiv in English Gipsy means as much and more than to fix in America, in fact, it is applied to almost any kind of action.

It may be remarked in this connection, that in German or continental Gipsy, which represents the English in a great measure as it once was, and which is far more perfect as to grammar, we find different words, which in English have become blended into one.  Thus, chib or chiv, a tongue, and tschiwawa (or chiv-ava), to lay, place, lean, sow, sink, set upright, move, harness, cover up, are united in England into chiv, which embraces the whole. “Chiv it apre” may be applied to throwing anything, to covering it up, to lifting it, to setting it, to pushing it, to circulating, and in fact to a very great number of similar verbs.