Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Godiva |
GodivaNoun1. According to legend she rode naked through Coventry in order to persuade her husband not to tax the townspeople so heavily; the only person to look at her as she rode by was a man named Tom and Peeping Tom has become a synonym for voyeur (circa 1040-1080). Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
"Godiva" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "a gift from God". |
| Domain | Definition |
Biographical Satire | GODIVA, Lady, horsewoman whose costume rivalled many exhibited at the Paris horseshow. Many said her habit was out of sight. Source: Who was Who: 5000BC - 1914. |
Literature | Godiva (Lady). Patroness of Coventry. In 1040, Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry, imposed certain exactions on his tenants, which his lady besought him to remove. To escape her importunity, he said he would do so if she would ride naked through the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and the Earl faithfully kept his promise. The legend asserts that every inhabitant of Coventry kept indoors at the time, but a certain tailor peeped through his window to see the lady pass. Some say he was struck blind, others that his eyes were put out by the indignant townsfolk, and some that he was put to death. Be this as it may, he has ever since been called "Peeping Tom of Coventry." Tennyson has a poem on the subject. The privilege of cutting wood in the Herduoles, by the parishioners of St. Briavel's Castle, in Gloucestershire, is said to have been granted by the Earl of Hereford (lord of Dean Forest) on precisely the same terms as those accepted by Lady Godiva. "Peeping Tom" is an interpolation not anterior to the reign of Charles II., if we may place any faith in the figure in Smithfield Street, which represents him in a flowing wig and Stuart cravat. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Godiva was a Saxon lady, who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry, England to gain from her husband a remission of the oppressive toll imposed on his tenants.The story is that she was the beautiful wife of Leofric, earl of Mercia and lord of Coventry. The people of that city suffering grievously under the earl's oppressive taxation, Lady Godiva appealed again and again to her husband, who obstinately refused to remit the tolls. At last, weary of her entreaties, he said he would grant her request if she would ride naked through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and after issuing a proclamation that all persons should keep within doors or shut their windows, she rode through, clothed only in her long hair. One person disobeyed her proclamation, a tailor, ever afterwards known as Peeping Tom. He bored a hole in his shutters that he might see Godiva pass, and is said to have been struck blind. Her husband kept his word and abolished the obnoxious taxes.
A statue of Lady Godiva in central Coventry
Larger version
The oldest form of the legend makes Godiva pass through Coventry market from one end to the other when the people were assembled, attended only by two female (clothed) horsemen. This version is given in Flores Izistoriarum by Roger of Wendover, who quoted from an earlier writer. The later story, with its episode of Peeping Tom, has been evolved by later chroniclers. Whether the lady Godiva of this story is the Godiva or Godgifu ("gift of God") of history is undecided.
The claim that Godiva's long hair effectively hid her from sight is generally believed, like the story of peeping Tom, to have been a later addition.
That a lady of this name existed in the early part of the 11th century is certain, as evidenced by several ancient documents, such as the Stow charter, the Spalding charter, and the Domesday survey, though the spelling of the name varies considerably. It would appear from Liber Eliensis (end of 12th century) that she was a widow when Leofric married her in 1040. In or about that year she aided in the founding of a monastery at Stow, Lincolnshire. In 1043 she persuaded her husband to build and endow a Benedictine monastery at Coventry. Her mark, "di Ego Godiva Comitissa diu istud desideravi," was found on the charter given by her brother, Thorold of Bucknall, sheriff of Lincolnshire, to the Benedictine monastery of Spalding; and she is commemorated as benefactress of other monasteries at Leominster, Chester, Wenlock, Worcester, and Evesham. She probably died a few years before the Domesday survey of 1085 and 1086, and was buried in one of the porches of the abbey church. Dugdale (1656) says that a window, with representations of Leofric and Godiva, was placed in Trinity Church, Coventry, about the time of Richard II.
The Godiva procession, a commemoration of the legendary ride instituted on May 31, 1678, as part of Coventry fair, was celebrated at intervals until 1826. From 1848 to 1887 it was revived, and continued into the 21st century. The wooden effigy of Peeping Tom which, since 1812, has looked out on the world from a house at the north-west corner of Hertford Street, Coventry, represents a man in armour, and was probably an image of Saint George. It was removed from another part of the town to its present position.
- (from an old encyclopedia)
External Links
- BBC News - the unearthing of a stained glass window of Lady Godiva
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Godiva."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Godiva (GOal-DIrected jaVA) is a programming language.
External links
- http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~jeffery/godiva/
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Godiva programming language."
Synonym: GodivaSynonym: Lady Godiva (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Godiva |
| English words defined with "Godiva": Coventry. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Godiva": Peeping Tom of Coventry. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Lyrics | Lady Godiva (Left & Right Featuring Method Man And Redman; performing artist: D'Angelo) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Lady Godiva Rides (1968) Pimple's Lady Godiva (1917) Lady Godiva (1911) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
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| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Photographed prior to her World War I Naval service. Formerly named Lady Godiva, then Norseman, Mohican was acquired by the Navy on 19 April 1917 and commissioned on 7 June 1917 as USS Mohican (SP-117). She was renamed SP-117 in 1918. The yacht was returned to her owner on 17 February 1919. Credit: NAVY. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Godiva" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Godiva" is used about 17 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 100% | 17 | 85,106 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "Godiva": lady godiva. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-g-i-o-v" | |
-1 letter: avoid. | |
-2 letters: agio, avid, dago, diva, gadi, goad, vagi, viga, void. | |
-3 letters: ado, ago, aid, avo, dag, dig, dog, gad, gid, goa, god, ova, via, vig. | |
-4 letters: ad, ag, ai, do, go, id, od. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-d-g-i-o-v" | |
+1 letter: valgoid. | |
+2 letters: avoiding. | |
+4 letters: advocating, derogative, disavowing, divagation, overdaring, overlading. | |
+5 letters: disfavoring, divagations, dovetailing, endeavoring, invigorated, overdrawing, overgoading, overhanding, overloading, overtrading, vagabonding, vagabondish, vagabondism, videography, videotaping, woodcarving. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)47 6F 64 69 76 61 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)--. --- -.. .. ...- .- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000111 01101111 01100100 01101001 01110110 01100001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)G o d i v a |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0047 006F 0064 0069 0076 0061 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)418170758867 |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
