haver

present singular third person havers · participle present havering · participle past havered · past havered

1. UKTo hem and haw.

   This didn't seem at all unlikely, but when I none the less havered, he insisted that his 'Egyptian fortune-teller' had confirmed it.

   1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 154

2. ScotlandTo talk foolishly; to chatter.

   To business, and no more havers.

   1897, Stanley John Weyman, chapter XIV, in Shrewsbury

   2 more examples

   And if I haver, Yeah I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man Who’s haverin' to you.

   1988, The Proclaimers, I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

   She havers on about her "faither" and "mirra" and the "wee wean," her child, and "hoo i wiz glaiket but bonny forby."

   2004, James Campbell, “Boswell and Mrs. Miller”, in Wendy Lesser, editor, The Genius of Language, page 194

   Synonyms: babble, haiver, maunder

1. Northern EnglandScotlandUKThe cereal grain of cultivated oats (Avena sativa).

   From porridge, the liquid preparation of oats, we are led almost automatically to the haver-cake, which was a great improvement on the former, for it could be carried about, and kept for an indefinite time in sound and wholesome condition.

   1902, Charles Roeder, “Notes on food and drink in Lancashire and other Northern Counties”, in Transactions of Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, page 44

2. Northern EnglandScotlandUKarchaicThe plant or the grain of common wild oats (Avena fatua).

plural havers

1. One who has something (in various senses).

   Because abortion would no longer be an issue (except, again, in the case of criminal sex-havers), Democrats and republicans would stop fighting […]

   2012, Robert Kurzban, Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite, page 186

   3 more examples

   It is held / That valour is the chiefest virtue, and / Most dignifies the haver: if it be, / The man I speak of cannot in the world / Be singly counterpoised.

   c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]

   Yet, DiAngelo writes, white people cling to the notion of racial innocence, a form of weaponized denial that positions black people as the "havers" of race and the guardians of racial knowledge.

   2018 July 23, Katy Waldman, “A Sociologist Examines the "White Fragility" That Prevents White Americans from Confronting Racism”, in New Yorker

   As a haver of eczema and chronically parched skin, I know I can always return to this nourishing formula that uses soothing colloidal oatmeal and allantoin as well as shea butter which works to protect the skin barrier.

   2022 December 2, Tessa Flores, “What Our Shopping Editors Are Buying From Sephora's Holiday Sale”, in Huffington Post

2. ScotlandlawThe person who has custody of a document.

plural haverim

1. alternativeAlternative form of chaver.

plural Havers

1. A surname.