Word.ws English Dictionary

shiver

Syllables: shi·verUK/ˈʃɪvə//ˈʃɪvɚ/

shiver verb: to tremble or shake, especially when cold or frightened.

Verb (1)

shiver (third-person singular simple present shivers, present participle shivering, simple past and past participle shivered)

  1. To tremble or shake, especially when cold or frightened.
    • They stood outside for hours, shivering in the frosty air.
    • The cold made me shiver.
  2. (transitive) To cause to shake or tremble, as a sail, by steering close to the wind.

Noun (1)

shiver (plural shivers)

  1. The act of shivering.
    • A shiver went up my spine.
    • But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
  2. A bodily response to early hypothermia.

Noun (2)

shiver (plural shivers)

  1. A fragment or splinter, especially of glass or stone.
    1. (Norfolk) A splinter of wood embedded in the flesh
  2. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) A thin slice; a shive.
    • a shiver of their own loaf1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)
  3. A variety of blue slate.
  4. A sheave or small wheel in a pulley.
  5. A small wedge, as for fastening the bolt of a window shutter.
  6. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) A spindle.

Verb (2)

shiver (third-person singular simple present shivers, present participle shivering, simple past and past participle shivered)

  1. (transitive) To break into splinters or fragments.
    • The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way / Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay; / That wandered wondrous far, when he the town / Of sacred Troy had sack'd and shivered down; […]1614–1615, Homer, “The First Book of Homer’s Odysseys”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615...
    • But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 24”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
  2. (intransitive) To be broken into splinters or fragments.
    • The dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one; […]1862, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret

Noun (3)

shiver (plural shivers)

  1. (collective) A group of sharks.
    • 'Don't you remember?" she said. 'One was off the bow, another alongside, yet another off the stern. A shiver of sharks.'2000, Marie Heaney, editor, Sunday Miscellany: A Selection from 1995-2000, Town House, page 22
    • flocks of birds and shivers of sharks2021, Christina Conklin, Marina Psaros, The Atlas of Disappearing Places: Our Coasts and Oceans in the Climate Crisis, page 100

Proper noun capitalized: Shiver

Shiver (plural Shivers)

  1. A surname.

shiver meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

shiver in Hindi

to tremble or shake
ठिठुरना ṭhiṭhurnā, काँपना kā̃pnā
the act or result of shivering
ठिठुरन ṭhiṭhuran, कँपकँपी kãpkãpī, सिहरन sihran
a bodily response to cold
ठिठुरन ṭhiṭhuran, कँपकँपी kãpkãpī, सिहरन sihran

shiver in Tamil

to tremble or shake
நடுங்கு naṭuṅku

shiver in Urdu

to shiver
ڈگمگانا ḍagmagānā

shiver in Bengali

কাঁপা, শিহরিত হওয়া
More languagesFewer languages
shiver in Malayalam
ധൂനി dhūni, വിറയ്ക്കുക viṟaykkuka, കിടിലം kiṭilaṁ
shiver in Kannada
ನಡುಕ, ಕಂಪನ, ತುಂಡು, ಚೂರು
shiver in Gujarati
ધ્રૂજવું dhrūjvũ, કંપવું kãmpvũ
shiver in Odia
ଥର thara, ଥରିବା tharibā
shiver in Sanskrit
कम्पते kampate, चलति cálati
shiver in Tagalog
nginig, kaligkig, katal
shiver in Arabic
اِرْتَجَفَ irtajafa, اِقْشَعَّرَ iqšaʕʕara
shiver in Persian
لرزیدن larzidan, لرز larz
shiver in Vietnamese
run

Examples of shiver in a sentence

  • The man that shivered on the brink of sin, / Thus steeled and hardened, ventures boldly in.1693, Thomas Creech, The thirteenth Satire of Juvenal:
  • Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red.1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “CHAPTER XVIII”, in Jane Eyre. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III)...
  • He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him.1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New...
  • he found a plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art upon the counter, lying shivered into fragments.1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, Norton, published 2005, page 1034:

All 40 example sentences with shiver

Forms of shiver

Verb
third-person singular presentshivers
present participleshivering
past participleshivered
pastshivered
Noun
pluralshivers
Proper noun
pluralShivers

Past tense of shiver: shivered

Plural of shiver: shivers

Origin of shiver

Origin uncertain, perhaps an alteration of chavel, or a frequentive of sheaf.

From a Germanic word, probably present in Old English though unattested, cognate with Old High German scivaro (German Schiefer (“slate”)).

Origin uncertain

Words formed from shiver

Phrases with shiver

Words that rhyme with shiver

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about shiver

What does shiver mean?
Shiver means to tremble or shake, especially when cold or frightened.
What is shiver in Hindi?
Shiver in Hindi is ठिठुरना (ṭhiṭhurnā), काँपना (kā̃pnā), ठिठुरन (ṭhiṭhuran). See Shiver meaning in Hindi.
How do you use shiver in a sentence?
The man that shivered on the brink of sin, / Thus steeled and hardened, ventures boldly in.
What part of speech is shiver?
Shiver can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce shiver?
Shiver is pronounced /ˈʃɪvɚ/ (US).
What is the past tense of shiver?
The past tense of shiver is shivered.

Words near shiver in the dictionary

  1. shived
  2. Shiveley
  3. Shiveleys
  4. Shively
  5. Shivelys
  6. shiver
  7. shiver me timbers
  8. shiver my sides
  9. shiver my soul
  10. shiver my timbers
  11. shivered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shiver (page history and authors); Shiver (page history and authors); ڈگمگانا (Urdu) (page history and authors); shiver (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); കിടിലം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); shiver (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); કંપવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଥର (Odia) (page history and authors); कम्पते (Sanskrit) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shiver.ogg.

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