English
chive
Pronunciation Noun

chive (plural chives)

  1. A perennial plant, Allium schoenoprasum, related to the onion.
  2. (in the plural) The leaves of this plant used as a herb.
  3. (obsolete) The style and stigma of a flower, especially saffron.
    • 1577, Raphael Holinshed et al., Holinshed's Chronicles, London: John Hunne, Book 3, Chapter 14, “Of English Saffron,”
      […] in the place wher he bled, Saffron was after found to grow, whereupon the people séeyng the color of the chiue as it stoode, (although I doubt not but it grewe there long before) adiudged it to come to the bloude of Crocus, and therefore they gaue it his name.
    • 1610, Edmund Bolton, The Elements of Armories, London: George Eld, Chapter 28, p. 156-157,
      […] to abate, and allay the fulnesse of red, we doe not see white vsed (as a colour too remote) but rather yellow, and that so farre-forth as some doe grinde a Chiue of Saffron with Vermillion, to make it the more pleasant, whereas white in like proportion mixed, would dimne, and decay it […]
    • 1633, John Gerard, The Herball or Generall Historie of Plants, London, Chapter 38, “Of Stitchwort,”
      The chiues or threds in the middle of the floure are sometimes of a reddish, or of a blackish colour.
    • 1648, Robert Herrick (poet), “The Temple” in Hesperides (poetry collection), London: John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, pp. 104-105,
      The Saint, to which the most he prayes
      And offers Incense Nights and dayes,
      The Lady of the Lobster is,
      Whose foot-pace he doth stroak & kisse;
      And, humbly, chives of Saffron brings,
      For his most cheerfull offerings.
Translations Translations Noun

chive (plural chives)

  1. (thieves' cant) A knife.
  2. (thieves' cant) A file.
  3. (thieves' cant) A saw.
Verb

chive (chives, present participle chiving; past and past participle chived)

  1. (thieves' cant) To stab.
  2. (thieves' cant) To cut.


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