Other forms: shivers, shivering, shivered
To shiver is to shake all over from cold or fear. Shivering with cold, it made me shiver, a shiver ran through him.
Shivering is the body generating heat by rapid muscle contraction, which is why it happens with cold and with fever. As a noun, a shiver is one such tremor, and send a shiver down your spine means to be thrillingly or unpleasantly frightening. Note shivery, meaning both cold and slightly unwell; and the unrelated old noun shiver meaning a splinter, which survives in shiver my timbers.
1verbshiverTo shake all over from cold or fear.
“We stood shivering at the bus stop in the freezing wind.”
2nounshakingA shaking tremor.
“A shiver went through the whole room when the name was read out.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
shiver is a shaking.
Also accepted in games: tremble
Origin unknown, perhaps an alteration of chavel, or a frequentive of sheaf.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA