Meaning & use
shiv
A crude, often homemade knife or blade used as a weapon, especially in prison slang.
See it in a sentence
Guards confiscated a shiv fashioned from a sharpened toothbrush during the cell search.
The character in the film hid a shiv inside his boot for protection.
A note on using this word
Shiv is informal slang, most closely associated with prison culture, and is rarely used in formal or neutral writing.
Words with a similar meaning
bladeknife
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
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