Meaning & use
shiv
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Meaning
nouncountableinformalslang
A crude knife or sharp blade, often made in prison from whatever materials are available, used as a weapon.
Grammar: Countable; normally used with an or the and mostly heard in informal talk about crime or prison.
Patterns
- make a shiv
- carry a shiv
- attack someone with a shiv
Guards found a shiv hidden inside a mattress during a routine search.
The prisoner had sharpened a plastic handle into a crude shiv.
Word forms
| plural | shivs |
|---|
Common combinations
- make a shiv
- In the novel, a character learns how to make a shiv from a toothbrush.
- hidden shiv
- Officers discovered a hidden shiv taped under a bunk.
- armed with a shiv
- The report said one inmate was armed with a shiv made from a sharpened spoon.
Synonyms and how they differ
- shank
- Very close in meaning and equally informal prison slang, used especially in American English.
- knife
- The neutral general word; a shiv is specifically a crude or improvised knife, so knife is the safer choice in formal writing.
- blade
- Refers to any cutting edge or knife-like weapon but does not suggest the homemade quality of a shiv.
Commonly confused: shiv or shim?
shiv vs shim
A shim is a thin wedge of material used to fill gaps or level things; do not confuse it with a shiv, a makeshift blade.
Practice
In a formal court report, a judge would most likely write that the prisoner carried a concealed ___.
Choose one answer.
Shiv and shank are prison slang and unsuitable for formal legal language, and shivs is a plural that does not fit a single concealed item; knife is the neutral term a judge would use.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “shiv”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.