Minimal pairs
noun
verb
Meanings
-
1
noun
a homemade or improvised knife, especially one used as a weapon
A guard confiscated a shiv fashioned from a sharpened toothbrush.
Thesaurus
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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