spiv
Meanings
Plural: spivs
Noun
- a person without employment who makes money by various dubious schemes; goes about smartly dressed and having a good time
- A smartly dressed person who trades in illicit, black-market or stolen goods, especially during World War II.
- A flashy con artist, often homeless, who lives by his wits.
- A low and common thief.
- A slacker; one who shirks responsibility.
Origin / Etymology
Unknown. 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. Also possibly from Romani spiv (“sparrow”), as active and opportunistic.
Synonyms
bristler, bunco artist, bunco-steerer, charlatan, cheat, cheater, chiseler, con artist, confidence artist, confidence trickster, conman, cozener, defrauder, finagler, fleecer, flimflammer, fraud, fraudmeister, fraudster, goldbrick, grifter, gull, gyp, humbug, landshark, lugger, magsman, mountebank, pickpenny, rook, saltimbanco, scammer, scamp, Scandaroon, schemester, shark-gull, sharker, sharper, sharpster, slicker, smooth operator, spieler, spiv, swindler, trapan, trepan, wide boy
Scrabble Score: 9
spiv is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordspiv is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
spiv is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary