US /ʃɪv/ UK /ʃɪv/
noun verb

Meanings

  1. 1
    noun

    a homemade or improvised knife, especially one used as a weapon

    A guard confiscated a shiv fashioned from a sharpened toothbrush.

Thesaurus

Synonyms
1 noun · a homemade or improvised... knifebladedaggerstilettoswitchblade
Word family
Related forms chiv

Etymology

Early 20th-century slang, a variant of chive/chiv ('knife'), thieves' cant from the 17th century, ultimately from Romani chiv ('blade').

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Topics

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