Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a party, a celebration.

1798		C. Cathcart Letter 6 May in Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words (1925) 255: We have just left Gibraltar [...] Sir John Orde gave a grand chevaux to which he was so good as to invite me.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 49: Cheveaux — pron. Shivaugh by Jack Burdett who often holds one [...] Dinner, wine, song, and uproar.
1829		Australian (Sydney) 12 May 3/5: He said, that having been invited to a ‘chev-ho,’ he had lent his guest the ensign to decorate the shuffling room a bit.
1837		‘Nights At Sea’ in Bentley’s Misc. May 478: They’re having a jolly sheave-o in the cabin!
1843		R. Carlton New Purchase II 228: The Shiver-ree-ers would insist on seeing the bridegroom. [Ibid.] 231: The musicians did not retire off [...] but remained and calling for ‘big-bug wine!’ [...] and letting off at each repetition of the demand peals of shiver-ree.
1851		A.T. Jackson Forty-Niner (1920) 23: The boys [...] gathered and gave the couple a shivaree [DA].
1875		Cheshire Obs. 19 June 2/3: I started such a rattling ‘shivaree’ down below.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Feb. 8/4: By the way, who was the clerical gentleman who refused the Press tickets for a little ‘shivoo’ because, as he politely observed, he ‘wanted no sinners.’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 22/4: Only the other day we drew attention to the fact that loving, but level-headed, papas were encouraging their future son-in-laws to elope with their darling gyurls, in order to save the ruinous expense of the nuption shavoos.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 14 Dec. 1/4: A naval gentleman was lately attiring: himself for a chivoo in tho shape of a ball at s Government House.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 6/3: The Austral Salon shivoo went off amid a great flourish of trumpets at Melbourne Hiberian Hall, in the presence of Governor Hopetoun and all Toorak sassiety.
1893		Motherwell Times (Lanark, Scot.) 25 Nov. 1/2: The wedding passed off, sir, with the gol-whoppinest shivaree ever got up.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 July 13/2: Teetotal ‘Tommy’ Taylor, lately departed out of Maoriland politics, at a ginger-beer shivoo: [...]. It takes a fish-blooded teetotaller to say things like that to a sick giant.
1900		Sporting Times 9 June 3/2: Before this lunching shivvoo got fairly started, the waiter brought out some funny little mottled eggs.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 41: Before this lunching shivoo got fairly started, the waiter brought out some funny little mottled eggs.
1903		Coventry Eve. Tel. 11 Dec. 2/5: The ‘1812’ overture as a musical shivaree.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 7 Feb. 5/4: The annual shivoo came round and the party politicians were carefully omitted from the dead-head list.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Aug. 43/2: We all had invites to the shivoo, except Dynamite.
1912		Truth (Wellington) 22 June 1/5: A farmer speaking at a Ministerial shivoo.
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 16: chivoo (n.) — A celebration.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: chivoo. A Celebration.
1924		Sun. Times (Perth) 6 July 11/4: The preparations for the shivoo had been proceeding for the past week.
1925		K. Mullen ‘Westernisms’ in AS I:3 152: That wild-sounding word spelled ‘charivari’ and pronounced with huge abandon ‘shiveree,’ which means a serenade on new-married couples, is from the French.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 254: Sheavo (or Sheevo): A row: a free fight. Also an entertainment.
1926		K.S. Prichard Working Bullocks 14: There’s a shivoo at Marritown.
1929		J.B. Booth London Town 235: The concert party huddled into sight to sing it, and – the shivvoo started.
1931		(con. 1900) L. Riggs Green Grow the Lilacs I iv: Gonna be a weddin’—Gonna be a shivoree.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 182: There’s gonner be a weddin’ at Black Adder Creek. [...] We’ll make a bonzer shivoo of it.
1940		E. Curry Hysterical Hist. of Aus. 51: He gave a shivoo at Government House.
1949		A.B. Hollingshead Elmtown’s Youth (1975) 321: Rice and old shoes are thrown [...] these symbols of good luck accompany almost every shivaree.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 241: ‘She’s ’avin a party Satdy night to announce it. ‘No!’ ‘Yes! Throwin’ a real big shivoo.’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 206: I’d been to a good few shivoes like this and ended up with a little tart sitting on my knee.
1956		Sydney Morn. Herald 11 May 30/3: Madame Onassis has arranged [...] the biggest and plushest chivoo.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 238/2: shevoo (shevoo, shivaroo) – a big, fancy party. said to have come from the French chez vous.
1966		P. White Solid Mandala (1976) 87: There were big shivoos with celebrities from Sydney.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 64: A victory shivaree whooping juicemad all the long night after a war.
1972		B. Wannan Folklore of the Aus. Pub 128: Shivoo: a drinking party.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 99: We must have sung that song a hundred times, serenading the whole battalion with a regular shivaree.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 46: Shivoo: A party similar to a rort except that in the first instance dancing takes precedence over fighting.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 134: Hardly ever heard today is the term shivoo, an Anglicisation of the French chez vous, meaning your place and widely used at least as early as the 1830s. It was still current in the 1940s, but seems to have since lurched into obsolescence.
2001		Sydney Morn. Herald 13 Dec. 26/6: Jones hosted his annual Christmas shivoo.