shiver

present singular third person shivers · participle present shivering · participle past shivered · past shivered

1. To tremble or shake, especially when cold or frightened.

   The cold made me shiver.

   5 more examples

   They stood outside for hours, shivering in the frosty air.

   The man that shivered on the brink of sin, / Thus steeled and hardened, ventures boldly in.

   1693, Thomas Creech, The thirteenth Satire of Juvenal

   Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"—"quite troublesome."

   1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “CHAPTER XVIII”, in Jane Eyre. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC

   He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him.

   1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

   Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.

   2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36

2. transitivenauticalTo cause to shake or tremble, as a sail, by steering close to the wind.

plural shivers

1. The act of shivering.

   A shiver went up my spine.

   1 more example

   But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking.

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

2. medicineA bodily response to early hypothermia.

plural shivers

1. A fragment or splinter, especially of glass or stone.
   1. NorfolkA splinter of wood embedded in the flesh
2. UKdialectalobsoleteA thin slice; a shive.

   a shiver of their own loaf

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)

3. geographyA variety of blue slate.
4. nauticalA sheave or small wheel in a pulley.
5. A small wedge, as for fastening the bolt of a window shutter.
6. UKdialectalobsoleteA spindle.

present singular third person shivers · participle present shivering · participle past shivered · past shivered

1. transitiveTo break into splinters or fragments.

   he found a plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art upon the counter, lying shivered into fragments.

   1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, Norton, published 2005, page 1034

   3 more examples

   The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way / Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay; / That wandered wondrous far, when he the town / Of sacred Troy had sack'd and shivered down; […]

   1614–1615, Homer, “The First Book of Homer’s Odysseys”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume I, London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC, page 1, lines 1–4

   But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 24”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   A whole series of fault lines radiated away from this Lisbon earthquake, all of them shivering the structures of traditional order.

   2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 183

2. intransitiveTo be broken into splinters or fragments.

   The dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one; […]

   1862, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret

plural shivers

1. collectiveA group of sharks.

   flocks of birds and shivers of sharks

   2021, Christina Conklin, Marina Psaros, The Atlas of Disappearing Places: Our Coasts and Oceans in the Climate Crisis, page 100

   2 more examples

   'Don't you remember?" she said. 'One was off the bow, another alongside, yet another off the stern. A shiver of sharks.'

   2000, Marie Heaney, editor, Sunday Miscellany: A Selection from 1995-2000, Town House, page 22

   Shivers of sharks might attack divers, and here are methods of fighting them off.

   2025, Georgia L. Irby, Greco-Roman Waters: A Sourcebook, Taylor & Francis

plural Shivers

1. A surname.