Word.ws English Dictionary

slive

/slaɪv/

slive verb: to cut; split; separate.

Verb (1)

slive (third-person singular simple present slives, present participle sliving, simple past slove or slived, past participle sliven or slived)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To cut; split; separate.
  2. (Scotland, dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To cut or slice something off; separate by slicing.

Noun

slive (plural slives)

  1. (dialectal) A slice or sliver; slip, chip.

Verb (2)

slive (third-person singular simple present slives, present participle sliving, simple past and past participle slived)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) To sneak; skulk; proceed in a sly way; creep.

Verb (3)

IPA/slɪv/

slive (third-person singular simple present slives, present participle sliving, simple past and past participle slived)

  1. (slang) To live life to the fullest while being successful, glamorous, and confident.

Forms of slive

Verb
third-person singular presentslives
present participlesliving
pastslove
pastslived
past participlesliven
past participleslived
Noun
pluralslives

Origin of slive

From Middle English sliven, from Old English slīfan (“to cleave, split”), from Proto-West Germanic *slīban, from Proto-Germanic *slībaną (“to split”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to cut”).

From Middle English sliven, from Old English slīfan, slēfan (“to slip or put a garment on”). Perhaps related to slip.

Back-formation from sliving, equivalent to blend of slay + live.

Words formed from slive

Words that rhyme with slive

34 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about slive

What does slive mean?
Slive means to cut; split; separate.
What part of speech is slive?
Slive can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce slive?
Slive is pronounced /slaɪv/.
What is the past tense of slive?
The past tense of slive is slove.

Words near slive in the dictionary

  1. slitwidth
  2. slitwidths
  3. slitwise
  4. Sliva
  5. Slivas
  6. slive
  7. slived
  8. sliven
  9. sliver
  10. sliver moon
  11. slivercast

Source and license

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