Definition of purvey in English:

transitive verb

• 1formal Provide or supply (food, drink, or other goods) as one's business.

  ‘shops purveying cooked food’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The dead man was one of many black Africans purveying goods outside normal shop hours and without work permits.’
  • ‘Interestingly, most adware companies slough off criticism onto their affiliates when caught purveying their unwanted goods.’
  • ‘The latter, in its legal and typical form, was a few stalls in a nearby town where peasant women purveyed food to urban-dwellers.’
  • ‘However, in the discourse of food and social level purveyed by this image, a more specific message is communicated by that eroticism.’
  • ‘At the other end of the city a sex shop proprietor had to fight tooth and nail to obtain a licence to sell his wares, while just around the corner a shop purveying the same stock does not need a licence because he sells candles as well.’
  • ‘What that spyware is trying to do is collect that information and the people who are purveying it trying to sell it.’
  • ‘We left that hell hole behind us chomping down on the strange alien food purveyed at the exit.’
  • ‘Credit cards are convenient, but few individuals have setups where they can handle the plastic, that being the purvey of businesses who deal in volume.’
  • ‘Occasionally, it seems to be their recording technique which purveys a great deal of the album's intimacy rather than the content.’
  • ‘In February 1342 he and William were instructed to sell all victuals purveyed by them.’
  • ‘They purveyed all sorts of nonsense to US and UK newspapers, who swallowed it hook line and sinker.’
  • ‘It purveys locally produced foods, wines, olive oils, cheeses and breads.’
  • ‘As I see it, we have a perfect example here of the left trying to muzzle or altogether silence a weblog that purveys ideas they don't like or agree with.’
  • ‘He purveys the usual Labour beliefs in comprehensive education.’
  • ‘Our agenda is simply to delight hundreds of millions of children, harmlessly purveying the wholesome, uplifting values of community decency.’
  • ‘Unless MPs and other leaders are pro-active, there will be very little room for prophets of doom who may wish to take advantage of some weaknesses and use these as fertile ground to purvey lies and discontent.’
  • ‘More than 20 million web pages purvey pornography to suit every taste, ‘adult’ chat rooms abound and virtual peepshows are proliferating at a staggering rate.’
  • ‘In this effort, advertising companies have notoriously used women as objects to purvey their products.’
  • ‘All are meant to purvey the same message of ubiquitousness, a sinister blend of reassurance and menace.’
  • ‘Though never quite managing to hit commercial paydirt, Glasgow-born singer/songwriter John Martyn has carved out an acclaimed career by purveying an idiosyncratic mix of rock, folk and jazz.’

  Synonyms

  sell, supply, provide, furnish, cater, retail, deal in, trade, carry, handle, stock, offer, auction, have for sale, put on the market, peddle, hawk, tout, traffic in

  pass on, transmit, broadcast, disseminate, spread, put round, put about, circulate, communicate, make known, publicize, publish

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1Spread or promote (an idea, view, etc.)
     ‘we didn't want to purvey gloom and doom’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Thus there is two-fold resistance to the dominant patterns of interpretation which have been purveyed by the mainstream churches.’
     • ‘Wordsworth was complaining about modernity, not the media; the difference in how information is purveyed today is by degrees.’
     • ‘His study of representative contemporary types in Irishmen all purveyed an inclusive notion of Irish nationhood.’
     • ‘They then become a center of excellence purveying their expertise to the public at large.’
     • ‘The government, purveying seriousness, can now be affronted with silliness.’
     • ‘Those of them who master its lessons will be inoculated against all manner of ideological nonsense purveyed by their leftist professors.’
     • ‘Occasionally, it seems to be their recording technique which purveys a great deal of the album's intimacy rather than the content.’
     • ‘He sets out to disprove the notion purveyed by Republican sympathizers that the media is biased to the left.’
     • ‘The conservative talk jocks have been purveying this canard to explain their monopoly of the spectrum.’
     • ‘They purveyed the lie that Connolly was entirely opposed to the use of armed struggle.’
     • ‘In the case of Vietnam, the anchor began as a reliable mouthpiece for the optimistic scenarios purveyed by the Johnson administration.’
     • ‘Common ownership can result in the same selectively chosen information and the same opinions being purveyed by different media outlets.’
     • ‘He purveys the usual Labour beliefs in comprehensive education.’
     • ‘On occasion, Soviet students openly disputed with lecturers purveying official truths, and this was quite shocking for traditionalists.’
     • ‘The media continue to purvey subtle (and not so subtle) messages that entrench stereotypical gender conceptions.’
     • ‘The ignorance purveyed by these programs puts young people at risk of HIV infection and premature death.’
     • ‘Delinquency was theorized by some as a rejection and inversion of the middle-class values purveyed by the school and, by others, as a celebration of working-class values.’
     • ‘All are meant to purvey the same message of ubiquitousness, a sinister blend of reassurance and menace.’
     • ‘It purveys a sense of yearning.’