Q: L.L. Bean sells something called a “bug bivy,” a mini-tent
made of mosquito netting for keeping out insects. No dictionary
I have access to has an entry for “bivy,” and not even the Bean
people could give me a definition. Have you ever heard of it? I
went on an etymological flight of fancy and decided that it’s a
diminutive of “bivouac.” A: Your instincts are right on track.
“Bivy,” more commonly spelled “bivvy,” originated during World
War I as army slang, short for the older “bivouac.” The Oxford
English Dictionary defines a “bivvy” as “a temporary shelter for
troops; a small tent.” The OED’s first citation for its use in
print is from The Anzac Book (1916), which was written and
illustrated in Gallipoli by the men of the Australian and New
Zealand Army Corps: “We lays down in the open / W’en our
‘bivvies’ isn’t dug.” Here are a few more OED citations. 1918:
“We arrived at our allotted spot, somewhere in Palestine, and
erected our bivvies” (from the Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F., a
journal published for sol