Green’s Dictionary of Slang

chevy (chase) n.

the face.

1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 70: ‘Stand back! [...] and leave the kid alone, or I’ll put out my Chalk Farm (my arm) and give you a rap with my Oliver Twist (fist) over your I suppose (nose) that’ll flatten your chevy chase (face) for you!’ he added, menacingly, between his teeth, as he shook his clenched hand in the air.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1884		Sporting Times 29 Nov. 1/1: Touch me On The Nob. He has olivered. He took his daisy roots off his plates of meat and threw them in my chivy.
1886		Sporting Times 30 Jan. 6/1: He was [...] getting the frog’s march proper, for having bashed a pint pot into the okeblow’s chevy.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 95: I felt as if I’d lost a pound weight off my chevie.
1895		Mirror of Life 6 July 10/1: In first place, Posh has not a fighting man’s ‘chevy’. Posj looks more like a peaceful publican.
1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Belinda to the Bench’ Sporting Times 13 Oct. 1/4: I can read it in your chevy, I can read it like a clock, / That for me you’ve got a moon or two, perhaps a ‘tray’ in stock. / What, a brace with ‘hard’?
1902		F. Murry et al. [perf. Alec Hurley] ‘’Arry, ’Arry, ’Arry’ 🎵 And while they tell their little tales of love across the bar / I keep my ‘Chivvy chase’ inside a pot.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 24 Feb. 6/2: [T]he punishment had Smith’s chivvy-chase looking three cornered and swollen to a great degree.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 6 Apr. 8/2: And M'Whusky’s sad chevy with mirth became pink.
1905		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘When Duty Calls’ Sporting Times 13 May 1/3: Something like a grin / Charmed away the stern official scowl from Slobber’s chevy chase.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Derby Bet’ Sporting Times 28 May 1/2: He looked very much under the weather, decidedly down on his luck, / One could tell by his woebegone chevy how rotten a time he had struck.
1917		W. Muir Observations of Orderly 225: A man’s arm is his ‘false alarm’; [...] his face ‘chevvy chase’.
1923		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 11 July 11/4: Chivy chase [...] face.
1935		Mirror (Perth) 14 Sept. 17/2: Face: Chibby chase.
1938		(con. 1900s) in J.B. Booth Sporting Times 87: And then down the apples and pears she went, With a sorrowful chevy chase.
a.1945		L. Payne private coll. n.p.: Face Chivvy Chase.
1946		St. Vincent Troubridge ‘Some Notes on Rhyming Argot’ in AS XXI:1 Feb. 46: chevy chase. The face. (England, 1857. Now obs. in England.) This is by no means obsolete; it is still the most common rhyming slang word for face.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 192/1: Stroked his ChivvySlashing a person’s face with a razor .
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 106: His ‘chevy chase’ [is] his face.
1969		S.T. Kendall Up the Frog.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 177: Chevy (Chase) Face.
1998		C. Fitzpatrick ‘Gower ’98’ on Sussex University Canoe Club 🌐 By this time I was friar tucked off my Chevy chase and was highland flinging along with everyone else.
2003		B. Dark Dirty Cockney Rhy. Sl. 37: She had a Chevy Chase like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.