plural of maven

[Garson O'Toole]

The OED lists a few different spellings for maven and suggests three
plural forms:

maven, n.
Inflections:  Plural mavens, mavins, mayvinim.
Forms:  19- maven, 19- mavin, 19- mayven, 19- mayvin, 19- mevin.

Etymology:  < Yiddish meyvn (plural mevinim) expert, connoisseur
Hebrew (the font would be scrambled during email transit) >

1950   Jewish Standard (Toronto) June 36 (advt.)    Both of these
epicures aptly describe the ‘pareve’, easy-to-fix dish that wins the
applause of every ‘mayvin’.

1952   N.Y. Times Mag. 21 Sept. 58   The most trying type [of
customer] of all‥is the ‘mayvin’. The word is of Yiddish origin, has
entered the language.

1965   Hadassah News Let. Apr. 30 (advt.) Get Vita at your favorite
supermarket, grocery or delicatessen. Tell them the beloved Maven sent
you. It won't save you any money: but you'll get the best herring.

A Wikipedian created an entry:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maven

While looking for the plural "mavens" I found so many irrelevant
matches that I switched to searching for phrases like "Herring
mavens", "movie mavens", "music mavens" to find a baseline instance.

Cite: 1967 January 2, Cleveland Plain Dealer, [Advertisement:
Crossroads Discount Records], Page 17-B, Cleveland, Ohio.
(GenealogyBank)
[Begin excerpt]
MUSIC MAVENS UNITE! STRIKE A BLOW FOR THE ARCANE, THE ESOTERIC – THE
OTHERWISE UNHACKNEYED AND, THEREFORE DESIRABLE.
[End excerpt]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 10:19 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: plural of maven
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> That may be *a* plural. Â Another, I'd submit, is "mavens".
>
> LH
>
> On Apr 16, 2012, at 10:07 PM, Dan Nussbaum wrote:
>
>> The plural of maven is maveeneem.
>>
>>
>> Dan Nussbaum=20
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org