just got this from a hurricane messageboard on ABC.com...always wondered where levee came from (no, I never LIU):

>A levee or levée (from the feminine past participle of the French verb lever, 'to raise') is a natural or artificial embankment or ****, usually earthen, which parallels the course of a river. The word seems to have come into English through its use in colonial Louisiana<

Holy cow--take a look at Gurunet's second def., #1; do people actually do this?

lev·ee1 (lĕv'ç)
n.
1. An embankment raised to prevent a river from overflowing.
2. A small ridge or raised area bordering an irrigated field.
3. A landing place on a river; a pier.

tr.v., lev·eed, lev·ee·ing, lev·ees.
To provide with a levee.

[French levée, from Old French levee, from feminine past participle of lever, to raise. See lever.]


lev·ee2 (lĕv'ç, lə-vç', -vâ')
n.
1. A reception held, as by royalty, upon arising from bed.
2. A formal reception, as at a royal court.
[From French lever, a rising, from Old French, from lever, to raise, rise. See lever.]

Maybe I'd get up earlier if I had a reception waiting for me...

Well, I don't know about now. I don't think Her present Majesty holds levees, but they certainly used to.

An account of Louis XIV's day:

http://www.chateauversailles.fr/en/311_A_Day_with_the_Sun_King.php

Bingley

John and Yoko held one that went on for several days

In one of the scenes cut from Hello Dolly, Dolly and her friends donned their jeans and went out and had a gathering at which they built an embankment, for which a tax had been coollected to defray the expenses; the tax was known as --Levi's Levis' Levee Levee Levee.

The Governor General of Canada holds events called levees, but I don't believe he or she holds them in his or her bedroom.