shiv
/ʃɪv/
shiv noun: a knife, especially a makeshift one fashioned from something not normally used as a weapon (like a plastic spoon or a toothbrush).
Noun
shiv (countable and uncountable, plural shivs)
- 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.1971, Abbie Hoffman, “Introduction”, in Steal This Book, Pirate Editions / Grove Press
- Mr. Simpson finished “If I Did It” with the help of a ghostwriter, but after a public outcry, the book was shelved, and the woman who had agreed to publish it lost her job. “Basically, I got the shiv,” Ms. Regan said in a phone interview this week.2024 April 13, Jacob Bernstein, quoting Judith Regan, “When O.J. Simpson ‘Confessed’ to Murder”, in The New York Times
- Synonyms:
- shank
- A particular woody by-product of processing flax or hemp.
Verb
shiv (third-person singular simple present shivs, present participle shivving, simple past and past participle shivved)
- To stab (someone) with a shiv.
- Anyway, that's how Jimmie came to be shivved and left to bleed out in the shower.2016, Andrew Shaffer, The Day of the Donald, Crooked Lane Books, →ISBN, page 6
- To stab (someone) with anything not normally used as a stabbing weapon.
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Shiv
Shiv
- A male given name from Sanskrit mainly used in India.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Shiv
Shiv
- 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...2003, Ian Rankin, A Question of Blood, Orion, →ISBN, page 19
shiv meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Telugu and Malayalam
shiv in Tamil
- சிவ், ஷிவ்
shiv in Bengali
- শিভ
shiv in Telugu
- శివ్
shiv in Malayalam
- ശിവ്
More languagesFewer languages
- shiv in Kannada
- ಶಿವ್
Synonyms of shiv
18 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of shiv
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | shivs |
| alternative Geordie Scotland | chib |
| alternative Geordie Scotland | chiv |
| alternative form | shive |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | shivs |
| present participle | shivving |
| past participle | shivved |
| past | shivved |
Origin of shiv
First attested 1915. From chive, chieve, chife, chiv (“knife”), from Romani chive, chiv, chivvomengro (“knife, dagger, blade”).
Variant of Shiva, from Sanskrit शिव (Śivá, “the auspicious one”).
From Siobhan and its other anglicised spellings.
Words formed from shiv
Words that rhyme with shiv
Questions about shiv
- What does shiv mean?
- Shiv means a knife, especially a makeshift one fashioned from something not normally used as a weapon (like a plastic spoon or a toothbrush).
- What is shiv in Tamil?
- Shiv in Tamil is சிவ், ஷிவ். See Shiv meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is shiv?
- Shiv can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce shiv?
- Shiv is pronounced /ʃɪv/.
- What is the plural of shiv?
- The plural of shiv is shivs.
Words near shiv in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shiv (page history and authors); Shiv (page history and authors); shiv (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shiv (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shiv (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shiv (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shiv (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-au-shiv.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shiv.wav.
Cite this entry: “shiv.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shiv. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.