Cōv'en-try, n.

n. (Geog.) A town in the county of Warwick, England.

To send to Coventry, to exclude from society; to shut out from all social intercourse for conduct regarded as mean or ungentlemanly.

This phrase has been traced to the times of Charles I., though with great doubt as to its origin. The following facts, mentioned by Baxter in the narrative of his life, may, perhaps, furnish an explanation. Coventry was a stronghold of the Puritans; and, at the commencement of the troubles, many of this despised sect, in the neighboring country, “that would fain have lived quietly at home, were forced [by the royalists] to be gone, and to Coventry they came.” Hence the phrase to send to Coventry may have been handed down by the Cavaliers to military men, and obtained its present application.