| shive | 1. A slice; as, a shive of bread. 2. A thin piece or fragment; specifically, one of the scales or pieces of the woody part of flax removed by the operation of breaking. 3. A thin, flat cork used for stopping a wide-mouthed bottle; also, a thin wooden bung for casks. See: Sheave. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| shiver | To separate suddenly into many small pieces or parts; to be shattered. "There shiver shafts upon shields thick." (Chaucer) "The natural world, should gravity once cease, . . . Would instantly shiver into millions of atoms." (Woodward) 1. One of the small pieces, or splinters, into which a brittle thing is broken by sudden violence; generally used in the plural. "All to shivers dashed." 2. A thin slice; a shive. "A shiver of their own loaf." "Of your soft bread, not but a shiver." (Chaucer) 3. <geology> A variety of blue slate. 4. A sheave or small wheel in a pulley. 5. A small wedge, as for fastening the bolt of a window shutter. 6. A spindle. Origin: OE. Schivere, fr. Shive; cf. G. Schifer a splinter, slate, OHG. Scivere a splinter, Dan. & Sw. Skifer a slate. See Shive, and cf. Skever. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| shiver-spar | <chemical> A variety of calcite, so called from its slaty structure. Synonym: slate spar. Origin: Cf. G. Schiefer-spath. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| shivering | Involuntary trembling or quivering of the body caused by contraction or twitching of the muscles, a physiologic method of heat production in man and other mammals. (12 Dec 1998) |