skeeve

/ˈskiːv/

skeeve verb: to disgust or disturb.

Verb

skeeve (third-person singular simple present skeeves, present participle skeeving, simple past and past participle skeeved)

(often, slang, transitive) To disgust or disturb.
- His mother is repulsed by his uncle; he has heard her whisper it in the kitchen, "I skeeves him, Charley." She is Italian.1993, Pete Dexter, Brotherly Love, page 16
- “Beecher,” Clementine whispers, “if this is skeeving you out, let's just skip the room and—” ¶ “I'm fine. No skeeving at all,” I tell her, knowing full well that Iris would've had me leave ten minutes ago.2011, Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle, chapter 3
(slang, transitive) To be disgusted or disturbed by.
- You could put that needle in your arm? Man, I skeeve that like death.1997, Don DeLillo, Underworld, Scribner, page 727
- Carmela: Sometimes I think you skeeve me. / Tony: I skeeve you? You’re the mother of my children. How could I?1999, Frank Renzulli, “Pax Soprana”, in The Sopranos, season 1, episode 6, spoken by Tony Soprana, Carmela Soprano (James Gandolfini, Edie Falco)
(intransitive, slang) To be or become disgusted.
- I remember Phil telling O'Maurigan after the Schuyler reading he's afraid I won't ever write a book— not because I'm lazy, or don't have the self-esteem, but because I skeeve on stealing.1993, James McCourt, Time Remaining, →ISBN, page 67
- “Beecher,” Clementine whispers, “if this is skeeving you out, let's just skip the room and—” ¶ “I'm fine. No skeeving at all,” I tell her, knowing full well that Iris would've had me leave ten minutes ago.2011, Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle, chapter 3

Noun

skeeve (plural skeeves)

(slang) A disgusting or loathed person.
- He looked so fucking competent, for a skeeve with greasy blond hair pulled into a ponytail, a beaded headband, and callused bare feet.1996, Robert DiChiara, Alibis, page 319

Examples of skeeve in a sentence

I asked her, one time, if it didn't maybe skeeve her to work for a crud like Duke.1964, Lou Cameron, The Block Busters, page 186:
"Those are not me — preppy jackets skeeve me!2007, Alexander Theroux, Laura Warholic, Or, The Sexual Intellectual, page 215:
At twenty-three, Eric wasn't that much older than my nineteen, but that didn't mean his pseudo-comeons didn't skeeve me out.2013, Alyssa Rose Ivy, Soar (The Empire Chronicles #1):

Forms of skeeve

Verb
third-person singular present	skeeves
present participle	skeeving
past participle	skeeved
past	skeeved
alternative form	skeev
Noun
plural	skeeves

Origin of skeeve

From Italian schifo (“disgust, nausea”) and Italian schifare (“to find disgusting or loathsome; to loathe”), introduced by Italian immigrants to the United States. Also possibly just a Back-formation from skeevy, similarly from Italian.

Words formed from skeeve

skeeve out

Words that rhyme with skeeve

45 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about skeeve

What does skeeve mean?: Skeeve means to disgust or disturb.
How do you use skeeve in a sentence?: I asked her, one time, if it didn't maybe skeeve her to work for a crud like Duke.
What part of speech is skeeve?: Skeeve can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce skeeve?: Skeeve is pronounced /ˈskiːv/.
What is the past tense of skeeve?: The past tense of skeeve is skeeved.

Words near skeeve in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: skeeve (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: 2026-09-02

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

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