sliver
UK/ˈslɪvə//ˈslɪvɚ/
sliver noun: a long piece cut or rent off; a sharp, slender fragment.
Noun
sliver (plural slivers)
- A long piece cut or rent off; a sharp, slender fragment.
- This is the tasting ritual, the lay Eucharist of cheese. The buyer squeezes the sliver of cheese between his fingers to test its consistency, sniffs it, and then tastes it as delicately as if it were the most subtle caviar.1972, Félix Martí-Ibáñez, The mirror of souls, and other essays, page 339
- A sliver of bone has punctured a lung, and a small surgical operation was needed to remove it (would he like to keep the bone as a memento?--it is in a phial by his bedside).2013, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 27, in The Childhood of Jesus, Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company, page 270
- Specifically, a splinter caught under the skin.
- A strand, or slender roll, of cotton or other fiber in a loose, untwisted state, produced by a carding machine and ready for the roving or slubbing which precedes spinning.
- Bait made of pieces of small fish.
- A narrow high-rise apartment building.
- A small amount of something; a drop in the bucket; a shred.
Verb
sliver (third-person singular simple present slivers, present participle slivering, simple past and past participle slivered)
- To cut or divide into long, thin pieces, or into very small pieces; to cut or rend lengthwise; to slit.
- to sliver wood
- slips of yew,
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipsec. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
sliver meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali
sliver in Hindi
- स्लिवर
sliver in Tamil
- பஞ்சுத்திரி
sliver in Marathi
- स्लिव्हर
sliver in Bengali
- পাতলা ফালি, ক্ষুদ্র টুকরো
More languagesFewer languages
- sliver in Telugu
- స్లివర్
- sliver in Malayalam
- ഖണ്ഡം, തുണ്ട്, നുറുക്ക്, നറുമിണി
- sliver in Kannada
- ದಬ್ಬೆ, ಚಕ್ಕೆ, ಸಿದರು, ಸಿಬರು
- sliver in Punjabi
- ਸਲਿਵਰ, ਸਲਿੱਵਰ
- sliver in Gujarati
- સ્લિવર
- sliver in Odia
- ସ୍ଲାଇଭର, ସ୍ଲାଇଭର୍
- sliver in Nepali
- स्लिवर, स्लाइभर
Examples of sliver in a sentence
- That is what my eating abroad had been: fearful, niminy-piminy slivers of prosciutto and single olives.
- Above him, a thin cloud moved across the bright sliver of the moon.
- A narrow sliver of white-dude face stares out.
Synonyms of sliver
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of sliver
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | slivers |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | slivers |
| present participle | slivering |
| past participle | slivered |
| past | slivered |
Origin of sliver
From Middle English slivere, sliver from Middle English sliven (“to cut, cleave, split”), from Old English slīfan (as in tōslīfan (“to split, split up”)).
Words formed from sliver
Words that rhyme with sliver
- shiver
- South River
- quiver
- liver
- river
- flivver
- Trout River
- West River
- Clyde River
- Hunter River
- Murray River
- aquiver
7 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about sliver
- What does sliver mean?
- Sliver means a long piece cut or rent off; a sharp, slender fragment.
- What is sliver in Hindi?
- Sliver in Hindi is स्लिवर. See Sliver meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is sliver?
- Sliver can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce sliver?
- Sliver is pronounced /ˈslɪvə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of sliver?
- The plural of sliver is slivers.
Words near sliver in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sliver (page history and authors); sliver (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sliver (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sliver (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sliver (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sliver (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sliver (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); sliver (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sliver (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sliver (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sliver (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sliver (Nepali, 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-sliver.ogg, en-us-sliver.ogg.
Cite this entry: “sliver.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sliver. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.