shiver

verb

1. 1

   To tremble or shake, especially when cold or frightened.

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

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

   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."

   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.

2. 2

   To cause to shake or tremble, as a sail, by steering close to the wind.

noun

1. 1

   The act of shivering.

   A shiver went up my spine.

   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. 2

   A bodily response to early hypothermia.

noun

1. 1

   A fragment or splinter, especially of glass or stone.

2. 2

   A fragment or splinter, especially of glass or stone. A splinter of wood embedded in the flesh

3. 3

   obsoleteA thin slice; a shive.

   a shiver of their own loaf

4. 4

   A variety of blue slate.

5. 5

   A sheave or small wheel in a pulley.

6. 6

   A small wedge, as for fastening the bolt of a window shutter.

7. 7

   obsoleteA spindle.

verb

1. 1

   To break into splinters or fragments.

   The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way / Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay; / That wandered wondrous far, when he the town / Of sacred Troy had sack'd and shivered down; […]

   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.

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

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

2. 2

   To be broken into splinters or fragments.

   The dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one; […]

noun

1. 1

   A group of sharks.

   'Don't you remember?" she said. 'One was off the bow, another alongside, yet another off the stern. A shiver of sharks.'

   flocks of birds and shivers of sharks

   Shivers of sharks might attack divers, and here are methods of fighting them off.

Forms

plural

shivers

past tense

shivered

past participle

shivered

present participle

shivering

third person singular

shivers