Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, related to, or resembling a spiv; flashy but often also seedy.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

spiv +‎ -y

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Examples

  • Terry's financial dealings, which have been described as "spivvy" (he has moonlighted from his Stg£170,000 a week on nixer jobs), have been added to the charge sheet on his character.

    Irish Blogs 2010

  • Terry's financial dealings, which have been described as "spivvy" (he has moonlighted from his Stg£170,000 a week on nixer jobs), have been added to the charge sheet on his character.

    Irish Blogs 2010

  • Three of the blue-collar characters in Mr. LaBute's four-hander seem as perverse about their obsession with looks, as the bookish Matilda is seen as perverse by her spivvy father and competition-ballroom-dancer mother.

    Reasons to Go to the Theater Paul Levy 2011

  • This, amid the spivvy salesmanship, becomes a pretty dominant motif; how funny you find it will determine how much you enjoy this series.

    Tonight's TV highlights Andrew Mueller 2010

  • With his facial twitch, the result of a serious 1990 car crash, and colourfully expressive manner, Redknapp has struggled to cast off the spivvy image that has dogged him through inconclusive Panorama and police investigations into his finances.

    Harry Redknapp: the people's manager | Observer profile 2012

  • Thanks to him, the British electorate no longer regards the Right as unacceptably selfish and spivvy.

    Everything You Always Wanted To Know About David Cameron 2010

  • Thanks to him, the British electorate no longer regards the Right as unacceptably selfish and spivvy.

    Everything You Always Wanted To Know About David Cameron 2010

  • Lord Oakshott, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, told the Lords: "Tax-dodging in Britain is a deep-seated, pervasive, pernicious disease … Highly organised, aggressive, abusive tax avoidance which used to be a marginal and rather spivvy operation, that was frowned on by the main banks and shunned by top accountants and lawyers who were mainly concerned with reputational risk, has now mushroomed out of all recognition."

    Tax collection. Now there's a moral crusade for the Tories 2010

  • Thanks to him, the British electorate no longer regards the Right as unacceptably selfish and spivvy.

    David Cameron: A Primer 2010

  • There are suggestions it always had a spivvy capitalist side: in Vineland "Prairie worked at the Bodhi Dharma Pizza Temple ... twelve-grain crust with the lightness and digestibility of a manhole cover."

    Rereading: Vineland by Thomas Pynchon 2010

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