Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Chiefly British Slang One, usually unemployed, who lives by one's wits.
- n. Chiefly British Slang One who shirks work or responsibility; a slacker.
Wiktionary
- n. UK, dated a smartly dressed person who trades in illicit, black-market or stolen goods
- n. UK, dated a flashy con artist, often homeless, who lives by his wits
- n. UK, dated in Scotland Yard usage, a low and common thief
- n. UK, dated a slacker; one who shirks responsibility
WordNet 3.0
- n. a person without employment who makes money by various dubious schemes; goes about smartly dressed and having a good time
Etymologies
- Perhaps from spiff, spiffy. 'Spiv' was the nickname of Henry Bagster, a Londoner arrested a number of times in 1904-6 for activities as described below, and may have been the archetype. (Wiktionary)
- Dialectal spif, dandified, dandy. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Update: Upon reflection I think Mr Weston might well be seen as a slightly camp version of what the English used to call a "spiv".”
“This political 'spiv' gave no thought to the aftermath of his decisions internationally or nationally.”
“However, he was only following the precedent set by the spineless grinning 'spiv' Blair who constantly referred to and talked about:”
“Finally, the word "spiv": no fashion lesson here, just enjoyment of the word's debut on this page.”
“- the stupidity of so many voters who believed in the vacuous 'spiv' Blair and the spin from Campbell and the twice disgraced Mandelson.”
“The roots lie in the British 80s and 90s -- two decades defined by the "chav" and "spiv" culture that was the fruit of the Murdoch 'n' Maggie as in Margaret Thatcher union.”
The Huffington Post: Martin Lewis: A Big Pile of Murdoch: The Ultimate Legacy of Rupert Merde...
“HM Treasury famously preens itself as having a collection of the very finest minds Oxbridge can produce – a pity then their principal activity seems to be devising spiv-like ways of deceiving the punters.”
“The spiv, the showman; Mr Blair promised a brave new world - a shining castle on the hill - very Reaganish... a promise he most certainly could not uphold as there was no hill, the castle was made of papier mache and when the rains came it melted away......”
The Guardian: The coalition counts on blaming Labour for everything. Bad move| Rafael Behr
“Libertines frontman Pete Doherty was "pathetic, a spiv".”
The Guardian: My dad, the revolutionary disciple of indie rock
“Alderman sidled up in the manner of Dad's Army's resident spiv Joe Walker with a pocketful of petrol coupons to shift at the policeman's ball.”
The Guardian: Praveen Kumar's rare style of swing bowling is as bold as it is old | Rob Bagchi
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spiv’.
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WWF WTF?
Ever play "Words With Friends" with someone and they throw down some strange, unlikely group of letters that makes even the most mild and squeaky clean tongued person say "whiskey tango foxtrot"? ...
oorie, sangar, merl, cwm, doum, weir, jura, invar, lawine, tapa, waw, shog and 376 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
niglets, aw, flakey, shiznit, thatch, sexy, bummers, hotty, eargasms, ratchetry, weird, fab and 457 more... -
Amazing words used by Paul Keating
shellback, spiv, glib, ordinary, recalcitrant, dash capability, footloose
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Words that were new to me
but now they're not because I looked them up. In cases of polysemy or homography, *of course* it was the oddest meaning that stumped me. ;)
Procrustean bed, idem sonans, hob, backcap, quango, cheap-jack, pantechnicon, churrigueresco, chopfallen, maritorious, supererogation, catimini and 212 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 843 more...
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KlinkKlonk's Words
hugger-muggering, gabfest, zedonk, serendipitous, schauden freude, scintilla, iconoclast, firebrand, floccinaucinihili..., schlepping, flaccid, iridescent and 126 more...
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...:::bella:::...
originally started as an attempt to collect words I found visually and auditorially beautiful, as well as psychically evocative, this has become nothing more than a grab bag of word curiosities, a ...
bergamot, jambalaya, bee's knees, heliotrope, hosanna, gamboge, aureole, filial, madrigal, multilingual, sacrosanct, sojourn and 1072 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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persnickety parlance
behoove, ebullient, insouciant, insipient, froth, quandary, quixotic, tendril, maktub, furrow, furl, anastrophe and 1076 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3250 more...
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Misdirector's Cut
Hey...
—> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> LOOK OVER THERE! —> —> —>
...sneaky, legerdemain, flimflam, unwittingly, clandestine, hornswoggle, sleveen, subversion, espionage, incognito, subreption, gank and 147 more...
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The Grifters
You're on the grift, same as me.
cheater, cheat, deceiver, deluder, dissimulator, swindler, faker, fleecer, flimflammer, fraud, fraudster, hustler and 81 more...
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just because
Not all English. Apologies.
bongo-bongoism, spiv, igg, wormwood, umbra, circean, woodnote, dormouse, ben trovato, exonym, apologetics, tuesday and 8 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spiv.
brtom Author of the thunderous ongoing recitatif, the spiv recital, its shill featurettes and occasions... John Latta, Isola di Rifiuti Jun 5, 2007