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shiver

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Etymology and origin of the English word shiver

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈʃɪvə/[1]
  • US: /ˈʃɪvɚ/[1]

shiver1 fragment, splinter

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1200 Trinity College Homilies
Inherited from
Middle English shivere
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *skif-

Etymology

The word for a fragment is inherited from Middle English shivere, early scifre,[2][3][4][5] probably from an Old English word that is not recorded.[6][7] It is cognate with Old High German scivaro (“splinter”), Middle High German schiver (“splinter”) and Middle Low German schever (“splinter”),[2][6][4][8] and with German Schiefer (“slate”), short for Schieferstein.[2][3] Ayto suggests that the word may have been borrowed from Low German.[9] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *skif- (“to split”),[6][3][9] the source also of sheave and shive,[2][5] and Etymonline takes it further to Proto-Indo-European *skei- (“to cut, split”).[6][10] The verb, to break into fragments, is shiveren, from the noun;[11][4][2] the OED compares Middle Dutch scheveren and schiveren.[2][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To break into small fragments: about 1200, in the Trinity College Homilies, as a verb formed from the noun.[2][8] Hoad finds the verb in the 12th century, in the compound to-shiver.[3] The noun, a fragment or splinter, appears in Laȝamon's Brut, before 1200 in Barnhart's dating and about 1275 in the OED's, which follows the date of the manuscript.[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The noun was always used mostly in phrases such as in shivers or to shivers, "in or into small pieces", and outside them it is now rare.[2][6] Johnson (1755) defined it as one of the many fragments into which a thing is broken, quoting Shakespeare's "He would pound thee into shivers with his fist".[12] The verb was used intransitively, "to fly into pieces", from about 1330, and Chaucer has it once.[2][13] In geology shiver was also a slaty stone (before 1728), perhaps after German.[2] The mock oath shiver my timbers, put into the mouths of sailors in comic fiction, is recorded from 1794 in Etymonline and 1834, in Marryat, in the OED.[6][2] In northern dialects a shiver is also a slice, especially of bread, and a flake of stone.[14][2][4]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – verb, to break into small fragments.[2]
  • c. 1275 – noun, a fragment, splinter, also in the phrase in shivers.[2]
  • c. 1330 – verb, intransitive, to fly in pieces.[2]
  • 1600 – a flake or splinter of stone.[2]
  • 1794 – shiver my timbers, a mock sailors' oath.[6][2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. One of the small pieces into which something is broken, as by a blow; a splinter or fragment: The vase lay in shivers on the floor.[4][2][12]
  2. (archaic and dialect) A slice.[4][14]

Verb

  1. To break suddenly into many small pieces; to shatter: The stone shivered the windscreen.[4][2]
  2. To fall apart into many small pieces.[4][2]

shiver2 to tremble

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1200 Vices and Virtues
Inherited from
Middle English shiveren

Etymology

The verb meaning to tremble is inherited from Middle English shiveren, an alteration of the earlier chiveren,[8][6][4][3] of uncertain origin.[2][8][5] The OED, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English suggest, with doubt, that it first referred to the chattering of the teeth from cold, and that it comes from chavelen (“to wag the jaws, chatter”), from Old English ċeafl (“jaw”), the source of jowl, with its ending changed to that of other verbs of trembling movement;[2][3][15][16][9] Etymonline reports the same idea from the Century Dictionary.[6] The Middle English Dictionary instead takes it as probably a blend of chillen (see chill) and biveren (“to tremble”),[11][6] from Old English bifian (“to shake”).[6] The change of the first sound is usually put down to the influence of shake;[2][8][3][6] Merriam-Webster thinks it was influenced instead by its homonym meaning "to shatter", which Barnhart thinks less plausible.[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give a chill to, to make someone shiver: about 1200, in Vices and Virtues, which speaks of the soul suffering in the "chiuerinde chele", the shivering cold.[2][11] The intransitive sense, to tremble with cold or fear, follows about 1250.[2]

Semantic evolution

Until the 15th century the verb was written with ch-, chivere or chevere, and the spelling with sh- replaced it then;[3][8] Barnhart's first shyveren is from before 1405.[8] Gower still used the form chievere.[13] From the start the verb covered trembling from pain, fear or anger as well as cold.[11] It was used figuratively from 1649, in Milton.[2] Sailors applied it from 1769 to a sail that flutters in the wind, and to bringing a sail edge-on to the wind.[2][16] The noun shiver, a fit of trembling, formed from the verb, appears only in 1727,[2][8][6] and the shivers, an attack of shivering or the ague, from 1854 in Etymonline and 1861, in Dickens's Great Expectations, in the OED.[6][2]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – chivere, transitive, to make someone shiver.[2][11]
  • c. 1250 – to tremble, especially with cold or fear.[2]
  • before 1405 – the spelling shyveren.[8]
  • 1649 – figurative use.[2]
  • 1727 – noun, a fit of trembling.[2][6]
  • 1769 – of a sail, to flutter in the wind.[2]
  • 1861 – the shivers, an attack of shivering.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To shake or tremble slightly, especially from cold or fear: We shivered at the bus stop.[16][4][2]
  2. (nautical) Of a sail, to flutter or shake in the wind; to luff.[16][4][2]

Noun

  1. An act of shivering; a trembling movement: A shiver went through the crowd.[16][4][2]
  2. the shivers: an attack of shivering, from cold, fear or illness.[16][4][2]

Word family

  • shiverer
  • shiveringly
  • shivery

Usage notes

The Century Dictionary, quoted by Etymonline, distinguished the near-synonyms: one shivers with cold or a feeling like cold, quakes with fear and shudders with horror, while to quiver is to make a slight trembling or fluttering movement.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  14. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  15. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
Cite this entry

“Shiver.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/shiver. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

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