Join free

shiv

English · Thesaurus

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

shiv¹

  • /ʃɪv/

Rhymes with -ɪv

Where it comes from

First attested 1915. From chive, chieve, chife, chiv (“knife”), from Romani chive, chiv, chivvomengro (“knife, dagger, blade”).

noun shivs · chib · chiv · shive

  1. countable, slang A knife, especially a makeshift one fashioned from something not normally used as a weapon (like a plastic spoon or a toothbrush). It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail—that graduate school of survival. Here you learn how to use toothpaste as glue, fashion a shiv out of a spoon and build intricate communication networks.

    Similar: shank

  2. uncountable A particular woody by-product of processing flax or hemp.

verb shivs · shivving · shivved · chib · chiv

  1. slang, transitive To stab (someone) with a shiv. Anyway, that's how Jimmie came to be shivved and left to bleed out in the shower.

    Similar: jab, shank, chef, chib, ching, chive, enthrill, foin, gore, gride, job, juke

  2. broadly, slang, transitive To stab (someone) with anything not normally used as a stabbing weapon.

Shiv²

Where it comes from

Variant of Shiva, from Sanskrit शिव (Śivá, “the auspicious one”).

proper noun

  1. A male given name from Sanskrit mainly used in India.

Shiv³

Where it comes from

From Siobhan and its other anglicised spellings.

proper noun

  1. A diminutive of the female given name Siobhan. 'Hiya, Shiv. It's Bobby Hogan here.' Detective Inspector Bobby Hogan. She'd asked him before not to call her Shiv. A lot of people tried it. Siobhan, pronounced Shi-vawn, shortened to Shiv. When people wrote her name down, it turned into all sorts of erroneous spellings. She remembered that Fairston

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: blade, switchblade, knife, shank, slide, bite, hunk, piece, lamina, schiff, chiv, shivvy, spife, switchknife, bush knife, kopesh

Translations

Every language

noun knife

Españolpincho, chuzo
Portuguêsestoque
Françaissurin
Русскийзато́чка zatóčka

verb stab

Françaissuriner
Italianoaccoltellare
Русскийпырну́ть зато́чкой pyrnútʹ zatóčkoj

verb stab with non-stabbing weapon

Portuguêsestocar, estoquear
Русскийпырну́ть pyrnútʹ

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"shiv." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/shiv. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

shiv. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/shiv

Chicago

"shiv." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/shiv.

BibTeX
@misc{shiv_2026,
  title = {shiv},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/shiv},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}