Word of the Day for Thursday, January 19, 2012
shiv \shiv\, noun:
A knife, especially a switchblade.
Then this one cop, the guy, he pulls out a picture, shows me a photograph, see, of my shiv. Now, I gotta tell ya, this shiv of mine's no ordinary blade.
-- Ashok Mathur, "Once Upon an Elephant"
“Why would he wipe the shiv?” Decker said. “Supposedly it was his shiv, not hers. Of course it would have his prints on it. Seems to me he'd just stick it back in its sheath and leave.”
-- Faye Kellerman, "Milk and Honey"
First used in English in the early 1600s, shiv is of unknown origin, but it may be related to the Romany word for knife, chiv.
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