shim
/ʃɪm/
shim noun: a wedge.
Noun (1)
shim (plural shims)
- A wedge.
- A thin piece of material, sometimes tapered, used for alignment or support.
- Near-synonym: shimstock (uncountable)
- The second adjustment [to a door that keeps swinging open] will require the screws to be loosened, and a shim or packing piece pushed behind the hinge to bring it into line.2016 January 30, Jeff Howell, “Swinging doors: it's not open and shut”, in The Daily Telegraph (Property), page 15
- Synonyms:
- shimstock
- A small library that transparently intercepts and modifies calls to an API, usually for compatibility purposes.
- Shims intercept Win32 API calls from legacy applications, as defined by system administrators, and then modify the call before passing the code to Windows for execution.2010, Russell Smith, Least Privilege Security for Windows 7, Vista and XP
- A kind of shallowly cutting plow used in tillage to break the ground and clear it of weeds.
- A small metal device used to pick open a lock.
- Synonyms:
- slim jim
- A thin device inserted into a card reader by a criminal to facilitate fraud.
- Synonyms:
- shimmer
Verb
shim (third-person singular simple present shims, present participle shimming, simple past and past participle shimmed)
- To fit one or more shims to a piece of machinery or other assembly; to adjust (something) by using shims.
- To adjust the homogeneity of a magnetic field (after the mechanical devices once used for the purpose).
- To intercept and modify calls to (an API), usually for compatibility purposes.
- To attack a point-of-sale card reader with a shim.
Noun (2)
shim (plural shims)
- A transsexual person, especially a trans woman; (loosely) a drag queen or transvestite.
- He — or "Shim" (she/him), as film director John Waters called the actor Divine — was as much a paradoxical as a perverse fellow.1998, The Seneca review, Hobart Student Association
- "We call him shim— short for 'she-him.'1995 May 30, The Advocate, page 11
- Synonyms:
- he-she
- A person characterised by both male and female traits, or by ambiguous male-female traits; a hermaphrodite.
- […] that I was a hermaphrodite, and that things would probably be getting much, much worse as other "parts" of me began to grow manly and I made the full transformation into a "shim."2009, Laurie Notaro, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death: Reflections on Revenge, Germophobia, and Laser Hair Removal, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 89
Noun (3) capitalized: SHIM
SHIM (uncountable)
- Abbreviation of scanning helium ion microscope.
Proper noun capitalized: Shim
Shim (plural Shims)
- A surname from Korean.
shim meaning in Malay
shim in Malay
- thin piece of material used for alignment or support
- syim, sendal, penyendal, sesendal
Synonyms of shim
Forms of shim
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | shims |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | shims |
| present participle | shimming |
| past participle | shimmed |
| past | shimmed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Shims |
| alternative form | Sim |
Origin of shim
Unknown; from Kent. Originally a piece of iron attached to a plow; sense of “thin piece of wood” from 1723, sense of “thin piece of material used for alignment or support” from 1860.
Blend of she + him.
Borrowed from Korean 심(沈) (Sim).
Words formed from shim
Phrases with shim
Words that rhyme with shim
Questions about shim
- What does shim mean?
- Shim means a wedge.
- What is shim in Malay?
- Shim in Malay is syim, sendal, penyendal. See Shim meaning in Malay.
- What part of speech is shim?
- Shim can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce shim?
- Shim is pronounced /ʃɪm/.
- What is the plural of shim?
- The plural of shim is shims.
Words near shim in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shim (page history and authors); SHIM (page history and authors); Shim (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-shim.wav.
Cite this entry: “shim.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shim. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.