spiv
/spɪv/
spiv noun: a smartly dressed person who trades in illicit, black-market or stolen goods, especially during World War II.
Noun
spiv (plural spivs)
- A smartly dressed person who trades in illicit, black-market or stolen goods, especially during World War II.
- A flashy con artist, often homeless, who lives by his wits.
- I mean, Mayfair is just top spivs stepping into the slippers of the former gentry, and Belgravia, like I've said, is all flats in houses built as palaces, and Chelsea—well!1960 [1959], Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners, New York: Macmillan, page 65
- It was Robeson who introduced me to the other blacks in New York, the Show Boat cast, the hangers-on, girlfriends, spivs, and bookies. "My people," he called them, "my brothers and sisters" […]1978, Paul Theroux, Picture Palace, page 92
- A low and common thief.
- A slacker; one who shirks responsibility.
Synonyms of spiv
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of spiv
| plural | spivs |
|---|
Origin of spiv
Unknown. Perhaps from spiff, spiffy. Spiv was the nickname of Henry Bagster, a Londoner arrested a number of times in 1904-6 for activities as described below, and may have been the archetype. Also possibly from Romani spiv (“sparrow”), as active and opportunistic.
Words formed from spiv
Words that rhyme with spiv
Questions about spiv
- What does spiv mean?
- Spiv means a smartly dressed person who trades in illicit, black-market or stolen goods, especially during World War II.
- What part of speech is spiv?
- Spiv is a noun.
- How do you pronounce spiv?
- Spiv is pronounced /spɪv/.
- What is the plural of spiv?
- The plural of spiv is spivs.
Words near spiv in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spiv (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-spiv.wav.
Cite this entry: “spiv.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spiv. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.