causey

What it means

1. obsoleteAn embankment holding in water; a dam.First known use 14th–18th c.
2. dialectalA causeway across marshy ground, an area of sea etc.

   than com Soriondes with all his peple that was so grete, and sette ouer the cauchie so rudely as horse myght renne.

   c. 1460, Merlin, volume II

   2 more examples

   He said he would pay them a cent for every two loads of stones or gravel which they should wheel in to make the causey.

   1841, Jacob Abbott, The Rollo Books

   I could see through the open doorway some fishermen in guernseys sitting on the grass listening, and a boat was drawn up on the shingle and others moored to the cauchie.

   1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 177

3. dialectalA paved path or highway; a street, or the part of a street paved with paving or cobbles as opposed to flagstones.

   Satan went down The Causey to Hell Gate.

   1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

In a sentence

than com Soriondes with all his peple that was so grete, and sette ouer the cauchie so rudely as horse myght renne.

c. 1460, Merlin, volume II

Where it comes from

1. Normancauchie
2. Englishcausey

From Anglo-Norman caucie, chaucee et al., from Late Latin calceāta. In Guernsey use after Guernsey Norman cauchie.

First known use: 14th–18th c.