Word.ws English Dictionary

screeve

/skɹiːv/

screeve verb: to write.

Verb

screeve (third-person singular simple present screeves, present participle screeving, simple past and past participle screeved)

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang) To write.
  2. (UK, obsolete, slang) To draw with chalks on a pavement or sidewalk.
  3. (UK, obsolete, slang) To write begging letters.

Noun (1)

screeve (plural screeves)

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang) A begging letter.

Noun (2)

screeve (countable and uncountable, plural screeves)

  1. In the grammar of Georgian and related languages, a combination of tense, aspect and mood. Occasionally used for non-Kartvelian languages.
    • It has already been explained that the series in the Kartvelian languages are sets of tense–mood–aspect paradigms. These paradigms are traditionally referred to as screeves. In general, a screeve expresses one tense, one aspect, and one mood. For example, in Old Georgian the screeve that is called...1985, Alice C. Harris, Diachronic Syntax: The Kartvelian Case, →ISBN, page 95
    • This qualitative vowel gradation is not connected with screeve (unlike Georgian).1986, Chato Gudjedjiani, Mykolas L. Palmaitis, Upper Svan: Grammar and Texts, page 65

Examples of screeve in a sentence

  • These paradigms are traditionally referred to as screeves.1985, Alice C. Harris, Diachronic Syntax: The Kartvelian Case, →ISBN, page 95:
  • A final term must be introduced here, the screeve (coined by the Georgian linguist Aḳaḳi Šanije from the Georgian word mc̣ḳrivi 'row').1990 [1982], Howard I. Aronson, Georgian: A Reading Grammar, Corrected edition, →ISBN, page 41:
  • screeve A set of verb-forms in a language which differ in person and number but which are identical in tense, aspect, mood, and voice.1997, R. L. Trask, A Student's Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, →ISBN, page 94:
  • The term screeve—borrowed from the Georgian linguistic tradition (cf.2007, Gregory D. S. Anderson, “Burushaski Morphology”, in Alan S. Kaye, editor, Morphologies of Asia and Africa, volume 2, page 1247 n.5:

Forms of screeve

Verb
third-person singular presentscreeves
present participlescreeving
past participlescreeved
pastscreeved
Noun
pluralscreeves

Origin of screeve

In view of the slang nature of the term, probably from Polari screeve (“write”), from Irish scríobh, eventually from Latin scrībō (“write”). Doublet of shrive.

Borrowed from Georgian მწკრივი (mc̣ḳrivi, “row, series”).

Words that rhyme with screeve

45 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about screeve

What does screeve mean?
Screeve means to write.
How do you use screeve in a sentence?
These paradigms are traditionally referred to as screeves.
What part of speech is screeve?
Screeve can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce screeve?
Screeve is pronounced /skɹiːv/.
What is the past tense of screeve?
The past tense of screeve is screeved.

Words near screeve in the dictionary

  1. screenwrote
  2. screeny
  3. screeplot
  4. screeplots
  5. screes
  6. screeve
  7. screeved
  8. screever
  9. screevers
  10. screeves
  11. screeving

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: screeve (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-screeve.wav.

Cite this entry: “screeve.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/screeve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.