shiv

plural shivs · alternative Geordie Scotland chib · alternative Geordie Scotland chiv · alternative shive

1. countableslangA knife, especially a makeshift one fashioned from something not normally used as a weapon (like a plastic spoon or a toothbrush).

   It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail—that graduate school of survival. Here you learn how to use toothpaste as glue, fashion a shiv out of a spoon and build intricate communication networks.

   1971, Abbie Hoffman, “Introduction”, in Steal This Book, Pirate Editions / Grove Press

   1 more example

   Mr. Simpson finished “If I Did It” with the help of a ghostwriter, but after a public outcry, the book was shelved, and the woman who had agreed to publish it lost her job. “Basically, I got the shiv,” Ms. Regan said in a phone interview this week.

   2024 April 13, Jacob Bernstein, quoting Judith Regan, “When O.J. Simpson ‘Confessed’ to Murder”, in The New York Times

   Synonyms: shank

2. uncountableA particular woody by-product of processing flax or hemp.

present singular third person shivs · participle present shivving · participle past shivved · past shivved · alternative Geordie Scotland chib · alternative Geordie Scotland chiv · alternative shive

1. slangtransitiveTo stab (someone) with a shiv.

   Anyway, that's how Jimmie came to be shivved and left to bleed out in the shower.

   2016, Andrew Shaffer, The Day of the Donald, Crooked Lane Books, →ISBN, page 6

   Synonyms: jab, shank, chef, chib, ching, chive, enthrill, foin

2. broadlyslangtransitiveTo stab (someone) with anything not normally used as a stabbing weapon.

1. A male given name from Sanskrit mainly used in India.

1. A diminutive of the female given name Siobhan.

   1 more example

   'Hiya, Shiv. It's Bobby Hogan here.' Detective Inspector Bobby Hogan. She'd asked him before not to call her Shiv. A lot of people tried it. Siobhan, pronounced Shi-vawn, shortened to Shiv. When people wrote her name down, it turned into all sorts of erroneous spellings. She remembered that Fairstone had called her 'Shiv' a few times, attempting familiarity. She hated it, and knew she should correct Hogan, but she didn't.

   2003, Ian Rankin, A Question of Blood, Orion, →ISBN, page 19