English

Verb

shiver ‎(third-person singular simple present shivers, present participle shivering, simple past and past participle shivered)

1. To tremble or shake, especially when cold or frightened.
   • Creech

     The man that shivered on the brink of sin, / Thus steeled and hardened, ventures boldly in.

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII

     Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"—"quite troublesome."

   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him.

   • 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:

     Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.

   They stood outside for hours, shivering in the frosty air.‎

2. (nautical, transitive) To cause to shake or tremble, as a sail, by steering close to the wind.

Translations

Noun

shiver ‎(plural shivers)

1. The act or result of shivering.

   A shiver went up my spine.‎

   • 1907, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “chapter I”, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 4241346:

     But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking.

2. (medicine) A bodily response to early hypothermia.^Wp

Translations

Derived terms

• send shivers down someone's spine

Etymology 2

From a Germanic word, probably present in Old English though unattested, cognate with Old High German scivaro (German Schiefer ‎(“slate”)).

Noun

shiver ‎(plural shivers)

1. A fragment or splinter, especially of glass or stone.
2. (obsolete, Britain, dialect) A thin slice; a shive.
   • Fuller

     a shiver of their own loaf

3. (geology) A variety of blue slate.
4. (nautical) A sheave or small wheel in a pulley.
5. A small wedge, as for fastening the bolt of a window shutter.
6. (obsolete, Britain, dialect) A spindle.

Verb

shiver ‎(third-person singular simple present shivers, present participle shivering, simple past and past participle shivered)

1. To break into splinters or fragments.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 24

     But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time.

   • 1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, Norton (2005), page 1034:

     he found a plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art upon the counter, lying shivered into fragments.

   • 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic 2011, p. 183:

     A whole series of fault lines radiated away from this Lisbon earthquake, all of them shivering the structures of traditional order.

Derived terms

• shiver my timbers

Anagrams

• shrive