Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A thin piece cut off; a slice: as, a shive of bread.
  • noun A splinter: same as shiver, 2.
  • noun A cork stopper large in diameter in proportion to its length, as the flat cork of a jar or wide-mouthed bottle.
  • noun A small iron wedge for fastening the bolt of a window-shutter.
  • noun A fragment of the rind or outer bark of flax, hemp, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Obs. or Prov. Eng. A slice.
  • noun A thin piece or fragment; specifically, one of the scales or pieces of the woody part of flax removed by the operation of breaking.
  • noun A thin, flat cork used for stopping a wide-mouthed bottle; also, a thin wooden bung for casks.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of shiva.
  • noun A slice, especially of bread.
  • noun obsolete A sheave.
  • noun A beam or plank of split wood.
  • noun A flat, wide cork for plugging a large hole.
  • noun slang A knife.
  • noun obsolete A splinter; a particle of fluff on the surface of cloth or other material.
  • noun A particle of impurity in finished paper.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a Proto-Germanic base which probably existed in Old English (though is not attested before the Middle English period). Cognate with German Schebe, Dutch scheef.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

See shiva

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variant of chiv, from Romani chiv, chive.

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Examples

Comments

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  • To slice or cut, in Nadsat

    January 7, 2009