verb to cut someone with a knife or a razor. Multiple variant spellings, including 'shive', 'shiv' and 'shife'. Probably from 'shive' (to slice bread), 1570; originally seen in this sense as 'chive', 1725; 'chiv' is not recorded until 1812; 'shiv' and 'shive' are C20 variations that hark back to the word's origins UK, 1812